


king of baking, kim mingyu

by yoonbot (iverins)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-19 08:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iverins/pseuds/yoonbot
Summary: But this is Seokmin's story, and he'd set the soundtrack to a compilation of the 90's biggest hits.





	king of baking, kim mingyu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chickencrust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickencrust/gifts).



> dear recipient,
> 
> what started out as a fun exchange fest fic quickly spiraled into this monster...  
> thank you for providing such interesting prompts! i had a lot of fun brainstorming and i guess...writing this fic...so i hope you enjoy it just as much! 
> 
> to the mods: thank you for organizing this exchange and putting up with me and my tardiness (╥_╥)  
> and to the friends that gave me the much needed support to push through and finish this fic: have my eternal love and gratitude ♡♡♡

Here's the way the story should've gone:

Seokmin force fails culinary math after receiving a fifty-nine on the midterm. He doesn't fight his way toward the front when the class ranks are posted up on the bulletin board near the cooking classrooms, tiptoeing instead to look over the swarm of students, glad that someone's head is blocking the bolded _29_ next to his name, accusing him of not trying harder.

Seokmin stress-bakes forty-eight fondant fancies that night. He ends up eating five of them and lays in his bed at four thirty in the morning, thinking he should probably take up Soonyoung's gym-ing offer.

Here's the way the story ends up actually going:

Seokmin studies his ass off for finals because he can't afford to re-take a class on his scholarship. Yuju laughs when he almost smashes his face into the Swedish princess cake they're practicing for their intermediate baking final at three in the morning.

"You look dead," she comments from where she's washing all the bowls and pots they used after finally getting Seokmin to sit down. His eyelids feel heavy when he blinks, and all he sees are fractions and recipe calculations behind them.

"I feel dead," Seokmin mumbles to Jihoon, the barista at his part-time job, a few days later as he's trying to (unsuccessfully) wipe down the countertops around where Seokmin's been doubled over since they started closing up the cafe, legs dangling a bit above the ground.

Jihoon snorts. "Call in sick tomorrow, then," he suggests, starting on the coffee machines instead. They both know Seokmin needs the money too much to, though. Seokmin finds an iced coffee with his name on it and god knows how many shots of espresso in it in the back refrigerator the next morning when he opens up the store.

His first mistake is pulling an all-nighter before his culinary math final, due to said iced coffee. And while the test itself goes over pretty well - no questions unanswered, and while there was that one problem on the last page that he took a wild guess on, according to Kyungwon, when they compared answers after, he wasn't too far off - a sleep-deprived Seokmin hyped up on caffeine becomes an anxious Seokmin. And an anxious Seokmin stress-bakes.

Culinary math was on the last day of finals - and after the cooking and baking finals, the kitchens were always uncharacteristically devoid of students, probably crashing or going out to celebrate the end of another cycle of exams. Seokmin has this weird tradition of post-exam baking where he makes his sister's tried-and-true recipe of rye bread with figs in it - the kind of dough that requires extra kneading so he can pound his bottled frustrations into it.

"You know you scream when you work the dough," Soonyoung told him the time he'd joined Seokmin in the tradition, lured in with the promise that it'd be _fun_.

Apparently, Seokmin has a very different definition of fun. "That's the point!" he'd said excitedly. Soonyoung had looked at him like he'd grown an extra arm. Suffice to say, that was the last time Seokmin had a stress-baking buddy.

So it's a standard post-exam bread session for Seokmin, with maybe a little more screaming and groaning _oh, yes,_ yes, _that's it_ because the dough is looking delicious and he's slightly delirious, and Seokmin is a strong believer in the superstition that sweet-talking his bakes makes them turn out even better. The coffee Jihoon made him must've been really strong because wow, he still has the strength to pummel the dough and maybe he'll even make another loaf because no matter how tired his brain feels, his fingertips are tingling with the need to do something and bread is the perfect distraction –

Seokmin doesn't realize he's made another mistake until he hears someone clear their voice through his own yelling of fraction conversions, and it's like the sanctity of the kneading process is broken. The rise goes out of the bread, the figs sink to the bottom, Seokmin suddenly loses his voice.

Second mistake: the door is open. That means that whoever's standing at the doorway heard everything.

Third mistake: the person at the door is Kim Mingyu. And Kim Mingyu is talking. The embarrassed smile on his lips exposes his canines, sharp compared to his other even teeth, and it reminds Seokmin of a carnivore hunting its prey, and all Seokmin can think about is a documentary about antelope he watched when he was in primary school and how he cried when a lion tore apart one of the babies. It makes him wonder if it’d be better to be torn apart or to hold onto the fragile hope that his brain-to-mouth filter would actually work in front of Mingyu, preventing him from screaming _please don’t eat me alive._

"Uh, it sounded like something else was happening, but I guess it's just...you?" Kim Mingyu says, rubbing the base of his neck. If he notices that Seokmin's eyes are about to pop out of his sockets, he says nothing. "And oh, bread." Pause. "That makes sense!"

"What?" Seokmin manages to croak out. It sounds like he hasn't had any water in days. He guesses he didn't, really. Just coffee. Jihoon's damn coffee.

It's not meant to be a conversation builder. Seokmin's brain is still busy short-circuiting as Mingyu averts his eyes and lets out a nervous chuckle. "You know," he starts. Clears his throat again. "Uh, you know." He gestures with his hands.

Seokmin squints. Mingyu makes a ring with the fingers of his left hand and sticks the index finger of his right through it. Three times.

It takes Seokmin's caffeine-addled mush of a brain those three full times to understand.

_Oh my god._

 

 

 

 

 

According to Seungkwan, Seokmin is as unlucky as they come. He’s really done it all over the years - paying for their entire friend group’s meals after losing a game of rock paper scissors to spilling cake batter onto the dean’s shoes (“He shouldn’t have been standing there!”). And just by Seokmin's luck, out of all the people that could've walked in on his stress-baking and mistaken it for people having sex in the kitchens, it had to be Kim Mingyu.

Seokmin is never, ever going to be able to hold a normal conversation with Mingyu for three reasons:

1) "I don't get why Kim Mingyu is that big of a fuss," Minghao sighs after coming second to him again in class rank. Soonyoung rubs his shoulders reassuringly while Seokmin nods along. He knew it'd been a rough semester for Minghao - he'd literally worked himself to the bone practicing in the kitchens every night, and the few times Seokmin kept him company, he only unhelpfully taste-tested Minghao's finished bakes, which usually turned out incredible. He suddenly feels a belated wave of guilt for exploiting Minghao’s stress.

Soonyoung makes eye contact with Seokmin from behind Minghao's drooping shoulders. _Say it,_ he mouths.

 _Isn't it your turn?_ Seokmin tries to mime back, tilting his chin in Soonyoung's direction. But Soonyoung's back to cooing at Minghao, who shrugs him off with an exasperated, "Ah, hyung!"

Dammit Soonyoung. Seokmin opens his mouth, but the words feel thick, sticking onto his tongue, hard to get out and hard to digest. “Well, you know,” he starts, wrapping an arm around Minghao. “That Kim Mingyu only comes first because of his parents’ name.” Minghao’s already noticeably perking up from where he’d wilted over his desk. “He can’t be _that_ much better than the rest of us.”

It doesn’t sit right with Seokmin to put Mingyu down when he doesn’t even know him. But this is only the Soonyoung-tested way to get Minghao to get over his post-class rank revelation slumps – which are ten times worse than the guilt Seokmin gets by trash talking Mingyu. _I’m sorry, Kim Mingyu,_ he thinks to himself as Soonyoung shoots him an indiscreet thumbs-up behind Minghao’s back. _I’m sure you’re a great person and a very talented baker, I hope you understand that Minghao is a bitter old soul, please forgive me –_

"I know, right?" Minghao starts fuming, at the same time someone says, "Did someone say my name?"

Soonyoung freezes. Seokmin freezes. Mingyu's leaning over the window to their classroom, nonchalantly. His broad shoulders look like they fill the entire frame from where Seokmin’s standing and the sun traces a silver line over the handsome bridge of his nose. They make eye contact, sharp, dark eyes bearing into his own, and it’s the most uncomfortable five seconds of Seokmin’s twenty-one years of existence. Mingyu doesn’t say anything else before walking away, which just makes Seokmin feel even worse. His nerves are fried.

"Who does he think he is?" Minghao scoffs. He throws an arm around Seokmin after taking in his stricken expression. "Hey, don't feel bad," he says. Soonyoung looks like he's going to burst out laughing at any moment. "You were just telling the truth."

2) So Kim Mingyu thinks Seokmin is a dick who talks behind people's backs. It could be worse. Seokmin could have to live with the fact that Mingyu thinks he's a dick who talks behind people's backs _and_ have to think about that every day when he sees his face.

And then Kim Mingyu ends up in his intermediate pastry class the semester after what he and Soonyoung call "The Minghao Incident."

To be fair, there were a good amount of Minghao incidents, like the one time when Minghao tasted Seokmin's first custard tart and said it was so rubbery the texture was like old boots. Minghao was a very incidental person like that.

"I try to be a good friend," Seokmin wails to Jihoon when they're closing up the shop one night, mop neglected in his hands. Jihoon wiggles it out of his grasp with a sigh, and finishes up the job instead. "I didn’t mean what I said! And now this guy hates me!" Jihoon doesn't bother to look up. "You know what he said to me the other day?"

Jihoon looks unenthusiastic, but Seokmin knows deep down - deep, deep down - that he wants to know. "What?" he mumbles after a good minute of letting Seokmin hang.

" _Pass the butter,_ " he says, in a poor imitation of Mingyu's deep voice. "No 'please.' Not even a 'thank you' after I gave it to him! Didn't even phrase it as a question!" Seokmin hits his head against the pastry case. "I've made an enemy for life."

"And it's not your fault?" Jihoon laughs. Seokmin doesn't know what's so funny. He thinks he's a pretty likable guy. Or at least he tries to be.

He frowns, unsure of what Jihoon's getting at. "No."

Several weeks later, when they're making Baked Alaska in class, Seokmin's piping his meringue on his dessert when he hears murmurs start among his classmates. He catches snippets of _Mingyu_ and _we should help look_ and _I can't believe someone would do that._

"Hey," Mingyu's voice comes loudly from the other side of the room. It reminds Seokmin of the time Mingyu caught him trash-talking him, and he winces, trying to put the thought out of his mind by piping another rose on his meringue. It's a little lopsided compared to the others. "I think someone took my Baked Alaska out of the freezer on accident."

Oh, the classic mix-ups of bakes. It’s happened to Seokmin enough times to know how the panic feels - he’d almost started tearing up in the middle of class the first time. "That sucks," Seokmin whispers to Yuju, who's still waiting for her ice cream to set. She glances at him, nodding, and then does a double take at his plate.

"Um, Seokmin," she hisses, nudging him with urgency. Good thing he's done piping. "It's you."

Seokmin frowns. "What's me?" And then he sees it too.

On the bottom right corner of the plate, in neatly written characters is _Kim Mingyu._ Well, shit.

Seokmin sees only two courses of action, both equally mortifying. One, he could just keep pretending that Mingyu’s Baked Alaska is his, hoping that staring at Mingyu’s handwriting would miraculously morph it into _Lee Seokmin_. But once everyone else took their desserts out of the freezer, it'd become obvious that he was the thief, and then the whole class would think Seokmin was a dessert stealer on the loose.

Two, he could fess up to his mistake now. But that requires looking Kim Mingyu in the eye, and Seokmin doesn’t think his retinas can take that. Yuju urges him into action by nudging him again, her eyebrows raised like she’s expecting him to be the bigger person. Seokmin doesn’t know how to break it to Yuju that her expectations are way too high for him.

After another unhelpful nudge – this time right to the ribs – Seokmin groans, giving in. He almost trips over himself taking the plate to Mingyu. "Hey," he breathes out once he’s finally stopped scrabbling over air. Inhales. Mingyu’s eyes regard him cautiously, like Seokmin’s here to secretly spit into his meringue.

He takes another deep breath. _Get it over with, Seokmin, get it over with._ When he opens his mouth, it all rushes out at once. "It was me I accidentally took your dessert I'm so sorry and I've already piped the meringue I'm so so sorry I thought it was mine! They look very similar! Mine is also strawberry and some other orange-colored ice cream! I'm sorry - "

Mingyu raises his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he laughs. It's the kind of laugh where nothing's truly funny, but there's just nothing else to really say. He smiles at Seokmin as he takes it from his hands. "It's fine. Thanks for finishing it, man."

The teacher later tells Mingyu that his piping work needs some cleaning up in front of the entire class. Mingyu graciously accepts the critique. It's probably easier accepting critiques you know aren't really your fault in the first place, though. Seokmin practices his roses until two in the morning that night.

3) See the bread incident.

Contrary to how the following events unfold in Seokmin’s imagination, the yeast is still rising and the figs are well-distributed throughout the dough and Seokmin has, unfortunately, not lost his ability to speak aloud. He has, however, lost the ability to string a coherent sentence in response to Mingyu’s demonstration, and feels his mouth flopping between open and closed like a fish out of water.

“Hey, that actually looks great,” Mingyu says, observing the dough. He takes a seat on the stool across from where Seokmin’s working, casual, like he owns the place. If Minghao was here, he’d probably have something to say about that. Seokmin’s too busy internally screaming to really think about what, though. “Mind if I sit here while you work? It’s cool if you do, I can just – “

Seokmin, still unable to put words together, starts back on his dough and tries to ignore Kim Mingyu’s existence. It’s the quietest, most stressful stress-baking session ever.

So, to put it all together, Mingyu probably thinks Seokmin is a dick who talks behind people's backs, sabotages other people's desserts, and makes sex noises while he kneads bread. Who also can't pipe for his life.

"Well," Soonyoung says, sympathetically, when Seokmin brings it up the second time that day. He’s lying on the couch, notebook squished up against the cushion, trying to balance a pencil on his nose. Seokmin thinks Soonyoung told him he was working on a sugar sculpture diagram twenty minutes ago. So much for that. He frowns at his own diagram of a four-tiered cake decoration. "You _are_ a walking disaster."

"Not even a hot mess," Seungkwan supplies. Seokmin glares at him from across the curry he'd brought over as a bribe for another batch of Seokmin’s eclairs. "Just one hundred percent disaster."

Soonyoung prods Seokmin with his toes. They're ice cold and make Seokmin flinch. "And, I mean, why do you care what Kim Mingyu thinks, anyway?"

"Because I'm not a dick!" Seokmin yelps. "What if he uses his connections and this stuff haunts me forever? I'll never get a job!"

Seungkwan makes a face. It’s the pinched sort of face he usually makes when he’s about to tell Seokmin that he's being stupid. "Mingyu gave me and Hansol a batch of his macarons once. Didn't even ask for anything in return." He waves away Seokmin's concerns with the back of his hand. "He's nice. He won't do that to you."

"Do you hear yourself?" Seokmin gapes. He looks to Soonyoung for support, who just shrugs in response. "He takes them so young," he sighs, clutching his heart. Seungkwan rolls his eyes and almost takes the curry with him when he leaves.

But in the end, it’s not really Minghao’s fault, or Soonyoung’s fault, or even their culinary math professor’s fault that Seokmin ends up facing Kim Mingyu again, trying to avoid his bright, hopeful eyes. Instead, it’s Seungkwan and his damn curry - and ultimately Seokmin’s doormat-ness - leading him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which just happens to be the kitchens the weekend after classes have ended for their short summer break, making Seungkwan eclairs.

Seokmin couldn’t have heard him right. He’s got a pot of raspberries boiling on the stove and contemplates jumping into it. “You want me to _what?_ ” he shrieks, extra shrill even by his own standards.

Mingyu doesn’t even waver at the sharpness of his voice. A smile stretches across his face in almost slow-motion, languid and easy. Predatory. Seokmin’s struck with the fact that he’s at the opposite end of the food chain from Mingyu, and it's not in his favor.

The oven starts going off. “Be my partner for the Bake Off,” Mingyu says again, loud enough to be heard through the beeping. There's no uplifting lilt to form a question. Just the cold, hard assertion of a fact.

Seokmin swears that unlucky has to be an understatement for him.

 

 

 

 

 

The problem isn’t the Bake Off, or the fact that Seokmin doesn’t think he’s good enough to participate in it.

The culinary school they attend (and that Seokmin managed to get into, by some miracle) is the most prestigious in the nation. At least one person in each class, if not five or six, goes on to Europe to do their apprenticeship at some huge, international pastry chain, and Seokmin’s known other graduates to go on and open their own cafes in Hongdae, to much success. Seokmin’s seen upperclassmen on _Bake Off_ before, even one of his own classmates last season, and it’s only natural that people from their school participate on the show.

The South Korean Bake Off’s become a sleeper hit since re-runs of the most recent season started airing over the summer. The combination of nearly impossible challenges, beautiful pastry displays, good-looking bakers (Seokmin’s heard his classmate, Jung Jaehyun, has gotten nonstop offers for not only apprenticeships but even variety shows ever since a video of him whisking batter went viral), and the token drama moment of someone breaking part of their display each episode have made the show an almost overnight success after four seasons. Seokmin’s seen the flyers for auditions circulating around the school, but he hadn’t paid them any mind. There was no way he’d be able to complete a whole picnic of baked goods in five hours like he’d seen in the finale – settled around Soonyoung’s laptop screen with a bowl of shrimp crackers dangerously close to Minghao’s feet.

“I could do better than him,” Minghao muttered for the fifth time in ten minutes. Someone on screen was still struggling with making caramel. Seokmin had been about to comment the exact opposite and stuffed another handful of crackers into his mouth once Soonyoung started agreeing with Minghao instead.

The problem is Kim Mingyu.

Other than the fact that Seokmin’s been nothing short of a disaster every time Mingyu happens to pass by him, Mingyu’s also been born with a golden spoon in his mouth. Heir of two generations of the biggest luxury bakery chain in the nation and son to two pastry chefs who’d both spent time working in prestigious bakeries in Paris, with names Seokmin would never be able to properly pronounce, Kim Mingyu was always, unsurprisingly, top of their class and every professor’s favorite student. Seokmin’s heard that just Mingyu’s sneakers alone cost what Seokmin earns in five months, and while he doesn’t think it’s right to be bitter, he does wonder what it’d be like to have enough money to not constantly have to eat eggs because it’s the only meat that’s in his budget.

Seokmin’s never tasted anything Mingyu’s baked, but he’s heard that it’s good, beyond good, actually. Yuju told him once that Mingyu always walked around the dorm building their first year, offering his bakes to other people because he’d make more than he could finish himself. There was a rumor going around that he’d made a salmon and apple quiche that made one girl tear up because it was just that perfect. Meanwhile, it took Seokmin weeks of late nights practicing blind bakes and getting yelled at in front of the whole class twice to finally stop making tarts with soggy bottoms.

The worst thing is, Kim Mingyu isn’t problem material – top of their class, unbelievably amazing pastry chef, tall, handsome and friendly. It's just the fact that he probably hates Seokmin, which he cleverly conceals behind the toothy smile gracing his face the entire time he explains to Seokmin why they should pair up, and is plotting for his downfall to be broadcasted nationwide.

“Think about it,” Mingyu went on to say. Seokmin didn’t know if it’d be right to tell him that he couldn’t even feel himself thinking at the moment. “We’re in the top ten of our class.” Seokmin had managed to pull himself up to ninth with the last series of exams – his parents had sounded even more excited than he was when he’d called to tell them the news. “I’m good with desserts, and you can make a mean loaf of bread.” He tapped his chin, thinking. “And we’re both pretty good at decoration, too. Don’t you think it’d work out?”

Every cell in Seokmin’s body screamed no.

Mingyu winced a little. Seokmin guessed he actually screamed with his mouth too. “Well,” Mingyu said, broad shoulders drooping a bit, looking deflated. Wait. Had he really wanted _Seokmin_ to be his partner? There was no way. “No rush.” He started walking out of the kitchen then. “Just let me know,” he said earnestly, meeting his eyes, and then it was just Seokmin, alone in the kitchens again, left with his slightly burnt raspberry jam.

Jihoon hums from where he’s sitting at one of the tables, forcing Seokmin to take care of closing up after slacking off for the past few weeks. “It doesn’t sound like he hates you,” he shrugs after Seokmin finishes his story. “Yeah, you’ve done some dumb shit, but he can’t dislike you for that.”

Seokmin gives him an affronted look. “You always say you hate me when I do dumb shit in the break room,” he points out.

Jihoon takes a moment to digest that. “I guess he does hate you then,” is the conclusion he reaches, thoroughly unhelpful.

Seokmin’s other co-worker, Minkyung, who sometimes opens up the café with him on odd weeks, baking the cookies while he’s working on bread, talks about “the bigger picture.” “The South Korean Bake Off!” she says, flailing her arms. Minkyung’s been a huge fan since the first season. “So what if the guy hates you? You could become an internet sensation overnight!”

“Not if I chop a finger off first,” Seokmin frowns. He shudders, actually thinking about it happening. There’s a reason Seokmin never considered going into the medical field.

Minkyung licks some cookie dough off the spatula after offering some to Seokmin, who rejects. “Oh, they’ll love that,” she says, picking a chocolate chip from her molar with her tongue. It doesn’t sound like she’s joking. Seokmin admits that he’s slightly afraid of Minkyung.

In the end, it’s Seungkwan who talks the most sense into Seokmin, which Seokmin accepts as his apology for getting him into this mess in the first place. “Think about it,” Seungkwan says, shaking his head at Seokmin, who’s moping on Seungkwan’s top bunk, arm dangling over the edge. Hansol is playing video games below him, completely oblivious to their conversation. “I did you a huge favor!”

Seokmin lifts his head from where it’s buried into Seungkwan’s sheets, opening his mouth to protest, but Seungkwan cuts him off. “Haven’t you thought about how this could get you a full ride apprenticeship? More bakeries are gonna notice you if you’ve been on TV before, you know.”

He hadn’t thought about that, but now that Seungkwan’s said it, it _does_ make a lot of sense. Seokmin’s family wasn’t poor, but his parents generated only a modest income, and he’d had to work his ass off finding scholarships to attend culinary school. Even if he did end up scoring a prestigious apprenticeship abroad, Seokmin would never be able to afford room and board, let alone the airfare, with his measly earnings from his part-time job, no matter how much he tried to budget by eating eggs. He’d been too worried about Kim Mingyu hating him that he’d totally blind sighted his future.

Seokmin’s about to agree with Seungkwan when it hits him again. Kim Mingyu hates him and is probably plotting Seokmin's downfall right now as he lay in Seungkwan’s bed, drowning in self-pity. “Doesn’t that depend on the fact that I don’t mess up?” he groans, pulling himself upright in one sudden motion.

“You’d be stupid to fuck up in front of the entire nation and some,” is all Seungkwan has to say to that. The tell-tale pinched look on his face tells Seokmin that Seungkwan has no faith in him to not botch up his bakes.

It’s not because Seokmin’s a bad baker. Not the best, sure, but he’d been talented enough to receive some scholarships and maintain a rank that placed him in the top percentile of his class for two years now, so that had to mean something.

No, it’s just that Seokmin’s clumsy. And when there’s pressure or something on his mind, it gets worse. It’s led him to slice his thumbs several times in the middle of exams, close the microwave door on his index finger twice, and to crash into Kim Mingyu as he’s walking down the hallway to their dorm’s communal bathroom, just as he’s thinking about how being on _Bake Off_ would be great if Mingyu wasn't the one asking him.

“Whoa!” Mingyu laughs, catching Seokmin by his shoulders before he can trip over his own feet. Seokmin feels Mingyu’s breath touching his cheek, and his face traitorously heats up.

They’re not super close, but it’s the closest Seokmin’s ever been to Mingyu, and it feels positively horrible. Seokmin’s arm burns from where Mingyu’s forearms are brushing it, and he keeps thinking about how strong Mingyu’s shoulder felt against his – probably perfectly fit to knead dough, sweat gathering at his brow as he worked it against the countertop, face drawn into sharp lines of concentration, and wow, Seokmin should not be thinking about this right now – when they bumped into each other. As Mingyu lets go of his grip on Seokmin’s shoulders, all he sees is a blur of his handsome jaw and tanned, glowing skin. Meanwhile, Seokmin always hears from his mom how he’s gotten three shades lighter when he goes home for winter break, a result of being holed up in classes all the time and only going grocery shopping once the sun’s gone down.

He takes a step back, creating an acceptable amount of distance between them. “Oh, hey Seokmin,” Mingyu says, that lazy smile of his spreading on his face. Maybe he needs to take another. “Didn’t know you lived on this floor.”

“Yeah,” he squeaks out. Clears his throat. “I mean,” he coughs into his elbow, trying to pass it off as shaky vocal chords from a cold. “You too.”

Mingyu just continues to look offensively amused and handsome. “I don’t, actually,” he shrugs, putting his hands in his pockets, and damn, how did Seokmin never notice those impressive biceps? _He’s showing off again,_ he hears Minghao’s voice of reason in his head scoff. _Snap out of it, Seokmin._ “I’m on floor five.”

“Oh,” Seokmin replies lamely. Some part of him is relieved to know that Mingyu is probably not one of the unnamed faces that overhears him sing NSYNC songs on the top of his lungs when he showers. Their conversation peters off into an awkward silence, stretched thin between Mingyu, who looks like he wants to walk away, and Seokmin, who’s going back-and-forth between admiring Mingyu’s biceps and wanting to fall through the floor.

“So,” Mingyu finally says. Seokmin lets out a sigh. “Have you thought about it?”

Seokmin is still thinking about the physics of falling through the floor – would he die from this height? “About what?” he echoes, and just as he says it, his mind catches up.

The realization dawning on him must’ve showed on his face, because Mingyu just leans against the wall, arms crossing over his chest now, biceps still on display, instead of saying anything. “Uh,” Seokmin starts. “Uhhhh.”

Mingyu isn’t smiling anymore. “No hard feelings, Seokmin,” he says, mouth twitching. Wait. _What?_ Mingyu takes his silence as a confirmation of rejection it seems because he keeps going. “I get it, it’s a lot to ask, we’re not even friends, yeah, it’s cool, let’s just pretend I never even asked – ”

Seokmin thinks about his dream – working on decorating desserts in a pastry shop in Paris, a long line of customers curling around it all the way down the street, small children straying from their parents’ sides to press their faces closer to the glass and watch him work. What Minkyung said about becoming an internet sensation, and what Seungkwan said about _you’d be_ stupid –

“I’ll do it!” Seokmin blurts out. Mingyu’s mouth is open, half in surprise, half in the midst of the words he was in the middle of saying, and _oh my god,_ Seokmin just cut him off, he’d definitely rescind his offer now –

And then comes Jihoon’s voice, belatedly – _I guess he does hate you then_ – but Mingyu’s face is already starting to light up, unfolding his arms (Seokmin is still not staring at his biceps) to put them around Seokmin. He’s suddenly being crushed against Mingyu’s chest, knocking all the wind out of his lungs, and Mingyu smells like soap and shampoo and Seokmin definitely _does not_ like it –

Fuck his luck, honestly.

 

 

 

 

 

“How’re you feeling?” Mingyu asks him for the fourth time that morning when they’re on their way to the shooting location. Seokmin can feel him bouncing on his toes from where their arms are pressed together, the Saturday morning subway too crowded for personal space.

He shrugs absentmindedly and shoves his earbuds in his ears, hoping the Backstreet Boys will drown out his fears. Maybe Mingyu won’t notice how his hand is shaking from where it’s wrapped around the rail.

It’s been two weeks since Mingyu sent in their application for the show, and it’d all been processed faster than Seokmin expected. Due to the prestige of their school, the producers had nudged them into the final lineup, and they’d only had to go in for one baking demonstration – untimed, much to Seokmin’s relief – before being accepted. Seokmin felt slightly guilty – apparently, this season had the most applications ever, and he couldn’t help feel like he cheated the system somewhat.

Mingyu, on the other hand, had been ecstatic. “Can you believe this, Seokmin?” he’d said, waving the acceptance letter around so much that the stiff paper was beginning to crease.

Seokmin didn’t know what to expect of Kim Mingyu, but never in a thousand years did he expect Mingyu to take the show so seriously. Not that Seokmin wasn’t. They’d initially agreed to meeting up three or four times before the first recording to practice baking together – it was easy to push each other to the side when they’d been tested individually all this time and to redo each other’s work, unsatisfied with the outcomes – but after the baking demonstration, Mingyu had suggested they meet up every day before the first official recording.

“I just think we need more teamwork,” Mingyu said. Seokmin had thought the demonstration went fine – a little slow, sure, but not bad. It’d been a pretty nice chocolate cake and batch of croissants, if Seokmin could say himself. Mingyu hadn’t waited for Seokmin’s answer after saying, “We’re meeting at the kitchens at ten to work on churros,” and stalking away.

Present day Mingyu steps on Seokmin’s foot right when “I Want It That Way” reaches its height, and the calming powers of the song are lost. “Sorry,” he smiles sheepishly when Seokmin hisses, moving a small step away before starting to bounce on his toes again.

 _He’s out to get you,_ is what Minghao would say, looking at Mingyu with distaste. Speaking of Minghao, he’d taken Seokmin’s announcement of his participation in the show well until he let it slip that Mingyu would be his partner.

“Mingyu?” Minghao echoed. Seokmin winced and looked at Soonyoung, who was unfortunately actually working on his sugar sculpture sketch this time, for support. “But you hate him, Seokmin!”

Seokmin didn’t know what to say. _That’s just you,_ came to mind. And _it’s the other way around!_ “He’s not that bad?” he tried. Minghao shook his head, muttering what sounded like _I’m friends with such idiots_ under his breath before getting up and slamming the door behind him.

“What’s gotten his panties in a twist?” Soonyoung frowned, finally looking up from his sketch at that. Seokmin buried his face into his pillow and groaned. Maybe Minghao had a point.

Seokmin hasn’t spoken to Minghao in more than a week now, and he’d totally forgotten about it through the haze of late night baking practices with Mingyu, waking up at six thirty in the morning to texts from Mingyu saying _i’m thinking passion fruit curd and white chocolate ganache for today_ and _deconstructed key lime pie tarts!,_ and his shifts at the coffee shop. Suddenly thinking about it now does nothing good for Seokmin’s nerves – already strung out from thinking about their challenges for today – and his hand continues shaking as he tries to switch to his Spice Girls playlist, almost dropping his phone in the process.

“Hey,” Mingyu says over the bass of “Larger Than Life,” catching Seokmin’s phone before it falls to the ground and gets lost or stepped on in between the hundreds of feet in their subway car. He places it back into the pocket of Seokmin's jacket instead. “We’ll be fine,” he says, smile starting to stretch languidly on his lips. Seokmin nods without smiling back and just tries to hold onto the last dregs of his sanity.

Objectively, they should have today in the bag. Of course they wouldn’t be able to prepare for the technical – the second task of the day when they’d be given a surprise assignment by the judges to test their baking knowledge – but the topic of the week had been given out a couple days after the acceptance letter came, and he and Mingyu had been planning and practicing all sorts of possible cakes since. Well, more like Mingyu planned and Seokmin did whatever he told him to. But you know. Teamwork.

Mingyu wasn’t much of a question-asker, Seokmin’s learned in the two weeks leading up to today and all their baking practices in between. He bravely proposed whatever idea he had in his head with sparkling eyes and never really asked for Seokmin’s opinion, elaborating his ideas even further through Seokmin’s indecisive silence – torn between wanting to suggest something else and not wanting to argue with Mingyu.

Unlike Mingyu, Seokmin was a wuss. “I think both blueberries and raspberries will sink the batter,” Seokmin suggested the first time Mingyu laid out a plan he didn’t agree with. “And then the cake won’t rise properly.”

Mingyu looked at him, smile slipping off his face. “It’ll be fine, Seokmin,” he said, turning back to where he was sketching out the tempered chocolate decorations to go around the sides.

The cake ended up a lot fluffier than Seokmin expected it to be, though it was more moist than it should’ve been. That said, that was the last time Seokmin ever tried to voice his opinion with Mingyu.

It’s not like Mingyu’s ideas were ever bad. It was the other way around actually – Mingyu’s ideas were really, really good. But every time they split up the work, it seemed like Seokmin was stuck mindlessly beating eggs, melting chocolate over the stove, or fetching Mingyu bowls and spatulas.

In other words, Seokmin was basically a glorified utensil drawer to Mingyu’s genius baker. Maybe that’s why Mingyu kept telling him not to worry – any culinary student with enough self-preservation would be able to do what Seokmin has to without mucking it up. Maybe if Seokmin makes a mistake today, Mingyu will start looking for another partner. He doesn’t know whether that’s good or bad for him.

When they squeeze through the throng of bodies to get off on their stop, Mingyu doesn’t look worried at all. He walks with long, fast strides like he can’t wait to get started while Seokmin bumbles along after him, trying to keep up and not get stuck behind someone walking and texting at the same time.

They’re in the waiting room with the other pairs of contestants when Mingyu finally seems to notice Seokmin’s next to him again. He’s still jittering by shaking his leg from where he’s sitting next to Seokmin on a two-person couch. “What’re you listening to?” he asks while yawning. It’s not even nine yet, and they’d left the dorms at seven.

Seokmin doesn’t trust his voice not to crack or squeak, so he just wordlessly offers an earbud to Mingyu. They sit in shared silence, the murmur of other contestants talking in the background, listening to TLC, Mingyu’s leg still bouncing.

It does nothing to calm Seokmin’s nerves.

 

 

 

 

 

Seokmin doesn’t end up slicing his thumb. He doesn’t forget to take the seeds out of the passion fruit curd, the white chocolate ganache turns out shiny and unburnt, and he doesn’t drop the sponge cakes as he takes them out of the oven. Everything’s going almost too smoothly – Mingyu’s carefully cutting apples into thin slices to put on the top of the cake while Seokmin’s carrying their dirty bowls to the sink – and while Seokmin’s heart is still beating at the speed of cicada wings, he lets out a breath of relief once he’s put the bowls in the sink. All the other teams look more pressed for time than they are – Kyulkyung’s still surrounded by staff after getting a nasty cut, her partner Eunwoo glancing over at her in between tasks, Wonwoo’s taken to the task of making another batch of creme patesserie after Junhui curdled the first one, and Jeonghan and Nayoung’s cakes aren’t baking. They’ve got just shy of an hour left and all Seokmin has to do is wait for the second sponge to finish baking before he starts fanning them for his life.

It's not until Seokmin licks the residue of batter off his thumb that he realizes things have gone wrong.

“Mingyu,” Seokmin hisses, following him to the freezer, where he’s placing the chocolate to cool. “The batter is salty.”

Mingyu turns after closing the freezer door. He squints at Seokmin as if he didn't hear him clearly. “What?” he says.

“The sponge batter is salty,” Seokmin says, trying not to freak out. Next to them, Kyulkyung goes back to her station, smiling reassuringly to Eunwoo. “There’s salt in it instead of sugar!” His voice cracks on the last syllable.

Mingyu hits himself in the forehead. “Holy shit,” he grumbles, calling a staff member over to bring them new bowls. The cameras are all focused on them now. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“You made the batter!” Seokmin whispers back. He tries to motion Mingyu over to the sink to avoid the cameras, but Mingyu doesn’t take the hint, standing firmly in front of the freezer door, like Seokmin would burst past him and create more chaos. Seokmin’s hands start to shake again. “I thought you tasted it before you put the cakes in!”

Mingyu’s grimace grows, creasing his forehead. He starts uncapping the flour again. “Whatever,” he mumbles, not looking at Seokmin. “I’ll just do it over again. We’re not presenting that to the judges.”

Seokmin flinches. So much for teamwork. “Fine,” he says, handing Mingyu some eggs. Mingyu reaches for the sugar instead.

For the next thirty minutes, Seokmin sits on the stool on the side of their station – watching Mingyu measure each ingredient precisely, fold the egg whites into the rest of the mixture, and measure out the two sponge trays, all in record time – feeling utterly useless. Mingyu doesn’t call him over until he’s taken the new cakes out of the oven, handing Seokmin the fan while Mingyu runs to the refrigerator to grab the ganache and chocolate. They’ve got ten minutes left, and even if Seokmin fans the sponges until his arms fall off, they both know they won’t cool in time for the ganache to not melt into the cake.

Fuck it. Seokmin puts down the fan, and picks up the cakes and pushes past Mingyu to put them in the freezer. Mingyu just looks at him, eyes wide. Seokmin’s fingertips tingle like they’ve fallen numb and asleep.

“Get the curd,” Seokmin says, fanning the cakes again now that they’re in the freezer. Mingyu stares at him for a moment before running back to their station to get it.

They finish right as time is called. After Mingyu places their finished cake at the corner of their station, he slumps against the countertop, apron covered with chocolate smears. The ganache is a little thin over the cake, but it’s not melting into the sponge too much, which Seokmin considers a victory. He shoots a close-mouthed smile to Mingyu when their eyes meet, both of them breathing hard.

“And that wasn’t even the technical,” Mingyu laughs. Seokmin presses his lips together, heart still beating like he just finished running a marathon, and shrugs in response.

The judges, Kahi and Jonghyun, notice the ganache melting into the cake. “The appearance isn’t too appealing,” Kahi notes, face unreadable. “But it tastes amazing.” Seokmin hears Mingyu let out a sigh of relief.

Jonghyun nods in agreement, a kind, almost shy smile on his lips. “That passion fruit curd is the best I’ve had.” Seokmin feels a little swell of pride bubble up in his chest at that.

Kyulkyung and Eunwoo’s black forest sponge cakes get glowing reviews, while Juyeon and Minki get comments on dry sponges. Everyone else falls in the spectrum in between, and though things didn’t go as perfectly as Mingyu wanted them to – as evidenced from the way he keeps sighing as they take their lunch break – Seokmin was satisfied that they hadn’t ended up last.

“If we don’t kill it in the technical,” Mingyu starts, after they’ve done their interview. He shakes his head, taking a long drink from his water bottle.

Seokmin thinks about what Mingyu said earlier. _I’ll just do it over again,_ like Seokmin would just mess it up again. “Yeah,” he echoes, but Mingyu’s already being pulled aside by Juyeon, who wants to ask him for tips on how to temper chocolate.

The words still sting, fresh and raw like he’s cutting meat with a paper cut on his finger – a small and thin wound, but painful nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

“Jihoon, help me,” Seokmin wails from where he’s sprawled across one of the couches in the corner of the cafe. Jihoon looks up to glance at him, either oblivious or uncaring to Seokmin’s plight, and goes back to wiping down the pastry case.

“Stop being a baby,” Jihoon frowns, shaking off Seokmin’s arm when he approaches to start wiping down the tables. “And help me clean shit up.”

Three hours ago, when they’d been on break in the backroom, leaving their new co-worker Chan – who was technically still in training – to fend for himself in the front, Jihoon had ended up slapping Seokmin’s snaking arms away, denying his need for a consolation hug. “If it bothers you so much,” he’d said when Seokmin retreated like a dog with its tail between its legs, muttering about how stingy Jihoon was, “then go talk to him about it.”

Seokmin had stared at him like he’d admitted to enjoying watching paint dry. “Kim Mingyu,” he’d repeated. Jihoon started putting his apron back on. “Talk to. Kim Mingyu?”

“Is that so hard?” Jihoon sighed, walking back to the front, where Chan was fumbling with two coffee cups in his hands. The poor kid. Seokmin stumbled after him, apron bunched into the back pocket of his jeans, even though he still had a good five minutes left in his break that he could use for power napping.

“You don’t understand – ” Seokmin started just as Jihoon pushed him to the creamer station, much stronger than his small build suggested. He watched miserably as Jihoon relieved Chan from cashier duty and spent the next few hours sulking as he poured milk into lattes.

The technical had gone well for them after that almost-trainwreck of the first bake. Mingyu had apparently come out of the womb making yeast-leavened cakes and took over most of the tasks silently, eyes dark and unreadably serious every time Seokmin offered to help.

“I’ve got it,” he’d answer with, or some variation of it, looking back to whatever he was working on after a dismissable glance at Seokmin. “You can work on this,” he’d continue, pushing some menial task onto Seokmin again, and Seokmin was torn between feeling hurt and slightly annoyed that Mingyu didn’t trust him to do anything more.

It wasn’t that Seokmin thought he could do a better job than Mingyu, because he knew he couldn’t. It was just that in between Seokmin’s brainless actions, he’d noticed that all the other teams were actually working _together_ – Kyulkyung and Eunwoo taking turns watching the cake rise in the oven and stirring the compote on the stove, Junhui taste-testing everything Wonwoo made and giving suggestions on how to adjust their flavors – and he wondered how, when he was normally so talkative that Minghao had slapped a hand over his mouth once before to shut him up, that he and Mingyu barely said anything that actually meant anything to each other.

They’d landed near the top of the pack after that first weekend – where they’d been tasked to make a three-tiered decorative cake for the showstopper challenge – shy of winning the “Star Team” award that ended up going to Kyulkyung and Eunwoo, and had managed to hang in through biscuit week, coming in the middle of the pack while Nayoung and Jeonghan had redeemed themselves from a disastrous technical by creating an intricate replica of Everland out of gingerbread using Nayoung’s architectural studies background.

Even when Kahi and Jonghyun had praised the tastes of their bakes, Seokmin felt like a child being praised for someone else’s work while Mingyu’s chest imperceptibly puffed up at their words. In between recordings, practicing late at night in the kitchens with Mingyu almost wordlessly, working at the coffee shop, and trying not to fall asleep during the commutes to and from the previously mentioned activities, Seokmin wondered if the strange, heavy, guilt-like feeling pressing against his ribs was worth possibly getting noticed by the bakeries of his dreams.

“He has to hate me,” Seokmin mumbles into the couch once he’s back in his dorm after he and Jihoon have finally closed up the cafe – he’d eventually been wheedled into mopping after Jihoon nudged his side with his elbow and had no strength for anything else. Soonyoung, usually his more sympathetic friend, has his headphones on and Minghao, who still hasn’t spoken to him since that time he stormed out, has apparently not spread the friendship ban to Soonyoung because he’s sitting on the floor, laptop screen alternating between the latest episode of One Piece and some messaging app, where he’s probably roasting Seokmin. In other words, Seokmin’s words are falling on deaf ears. What was new, really. “Or he’s the unfriendliest person on this planet.”

He says it just to say it because it’s definitely not the case. They’re out by dinner time after each recording, and though all the bakers usually go around trying out each other’s bakes, Kyulkyung and Eunwoo have created a tradition where they all go out to dinner. Everyone was friendly, but Seokmin usually found himself nodding along whenever someone would try to talk to him, his mind screaming _what do I say, it’s social interaction, just smile and nod,_ and _what are we talking about again?_ In short, Seokmin hadn’t really held a real conversation with anyone, not even Jeonghan, who could sweet talk a wall.

On the other hand, Mingyu had actually made friends. He’d laugh at something Eunwoo told him during the break in between bakes and walk around asking about everyone’s days when he was waiting for things to proof while Seokmin whisked things on the stove or pretended to be busy, help out Sungyeon and Jisoo with last minute decorating if he and Seokmin managed to finish early, and goof around with Junhui by making silly faces as they were waiting for the judges to announce their challenges.

It wasn’t surprising then, that Mingyu got invited to these dinners, while Seokmin awkwardly trailed behind him and the rest of the remaining bakers. “Oh,” Mingyu had said the first time, noticing Seokmin when he looked over his shoulder to say something at Wonwoo. “You wanna come too?” he’d asked the same way Seokmin would ask Seungcheol for a raise at work. Which was never.

Seokmin felt his eyebrow twitch as he looked back down at his hand-me-down Converse, falling apart at the seams. The toes of Mingyu’s shoes were shiny and clean in contrast. “Nah,” he said, as lightly as possible. At this point, the day Kim Mingyu truly wanted to solicit Seokmin’s opinion would be when Seokmin was dead. “I’m burnt out from today.” He’d tried laughing but it sounded like the sound a kicked donkey would make.

Mingyu looked at him funny, and Seokmin couldn’t tell if it was because of the laugh or the actual response. “See you later, then,” he ended up saying as they approached the crosswalk. Seokmin shifted his feet uncomfortably as they waited, Seokmin standing slightly away from the rest of the group, Mingyu slinging an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders. He wondered if only he felt the sticky tension as they crossed the street before actually going their separate ways.

When Seokmin really thinks about it, he doesn’t really have that many friends in the first place. There’s Soonyoung, stuck with him by default since they’re roommates, and Seungkwan when he wasn’t calling Seokmin stupid, and by association, Hansol, who sometimes talked to him about the chemistry of making bread that had the properties of probiotics when Seungkwan and Soonyoung were busy bickering about something. He’s not sure if Jihoon, Chan, and Minkyung counted because they’re all co-workers and Jihoon is always insisting on that fact, Seungcheol is like his dad-away-from-home whenever he visits their branch, Yuju doesn’t hang out with Seokmin much outside of class, and Minghao, who he’d usually put up there with Soonyoung, Seungkwan, and Hansol, comments to Soonyoung (who’s still plugged into his headphones) that the wind is exceptionally loud today when Seokmin groans again, kicking his legs and hitting his shins on the end table in the process.

He’s hissing in pain when his phone vibrates in his back pocket. Underneath the bright _12:04 AM_ on the screen is a text from Mingyu saying _kitchen in north campus in ten,_ like Seokmin has nothing better to do.

Speaking of the devil. Or, Seokmin guesses that “thinking of the devil” would be more accurate, since Soonyoung and Minghao are pointedly ignoring him. He pulls on his coat from where he’d crumpled it underneath his butt. “Kim Mingyu hates me!” Seokmin says, trying one last time for some empathy. Because he doesn’t complain about Kim Mingyu every day to anyone who will listen. Definitely not.

“What a windy night we’re having,” Minghao comments again. Seokmin thinks he either needs more friends or new ones.

 

 

 

 

 

The upcoming week is bread week. Seokmin had been looking forward to it until he sees Mingyu already in the kitchen – north campus was a good fifteen minutes from the dorms and Seokmin’s eyelids had felt like they were sliding down the entire walk there – and remembers he probably wouldn’t actually be making the bread.

Mingyu’s doesn’t look up from where he’s dusting the counter with flour. There are already a substantial pile of dirty bowls in the sink that Seokmin characteristically ends up washing after each of their practices in an attempt to feel useful. “Hey,” he says as he dumps the sticky dough onto the floured surface and starts to knead.

Seokmin notices several problems with this entire situation from where he pauses at the doorway. One – the dough looks very wet for what Seokmin’s assuming should be for rye bread rolls, the first challenge that they’d be assigned on Saturday.

Two – Mingyu’s fingers were long and his palms were big and strong and Seokmin wondered how he’d never noticed that before.

Three – Mingyu was wearing a tank top and after his hands, all Seokmin sees are his biceps flexing and unflexing as he continues to work the dough.

“Hey,” Seokmin says back, mouth dry. He ends up squeaking. Mingyu’s biceps keep flexing.

Mingyu, probably used to all of Seokmin’s nervous voice cracks and uptilted words by now, puts more flour on the counter. Some part of Seokmin screams because more flour isn’t going to help make the dough less wet, but his tongue doesn’t move when he opens his mouth. He’s slightly worried he might start salivating instead, which really shouldn’t be the case because he doesn’t find Kim Mingyu – with his too-handsome face, sweat glowing on his nicely-shaped forehead (Seokmin didn’t know foreheads could be so perfect), and impressive biceps – attractive.

The feeling’s gone when Mingyu stops kneading and the spell of his constantly flexing biceps is broken. His eyebrows draw together in confusion. “I don’t know why this dough is so wet,” he frowns. “I don’t want to knead it so much until after it’s proofed, and rye bread is supposed to be drier…” he trails off, turning to Seokmin.

Maybe the calm of knowing exactly what’s going wrong is showing on Seokmin’s face for once because Mingyu’s frown deepens. “You know exactly what’s wrong,” he says, scrunching his handsome face more in distaste.

Seokmin starts to reply but Mingyu turns back to the bread instead of probing further. He kneads the dough a bit more – and Seokmin almost forgets what he’s going to say as those biceps start moving again – before stopping again and frowning at it, as if making the most twisted face would give him the answer.

“It’s too wet,” Seokmin supplies. Mingyu doesn’t look up at the dough. Seokmin sighs. “Either you didn’t measure out the dry ingredients correctly or there’s too much moisture from something in there.”

Mingyu hums dismissively, ignoring Seokmin’s pointers and going back to kneading. The thick, peanut butter-like feeling clogs his chest and his breath comes out unevenly when he exhales. It’s the same thing again – Mingyu saying he’ll do things by himself, Mingyu never asking questions or for Seokmin’s help, Mingyu suggesting things but not looking for Seokmin’s opinion, Mingyu overhearing Seokmin say something shitty about him, Mingyu looking at him with mocking eyes through the smile on his lips when Seokmin stammers out an apology over the Baked Alaska – Mingyu _hating_ him, and Seokmin’s so exhausted from a lot of things that he can’t hide it behind nervous laughter and complaining to Jihoon, Soonyoung, and Seungkwan about it anymore.

“You’re doing it all wrong,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. His voice sounds more aggressive and sharp than he intended, and he winces a bit, regretting. Mingyu turns his head slowly to look at him. His eyes are wide like he’s seeing Seokmin for the first time.

“What?” Mingyu says, and it’s the first time he’s asked Seokmin anything.

Seokmin pokes a finger in the dough. “There’s figs in here, right?” Mingyu nods. “And some other fruit?” He looks closer. “Dates?”

Mingyu starts to open his mouth, but Seokmin speaks first. “They’re not dried enough and there’s too many of them in the dough. It’s weighing the yeast down so it can’t start rising and all the moisture is causing the bread to get heavy.”

He waits for Mingyu to say something, but the other is just rubbing his finger through the flour on the counter, creating a clean streak. “But I, uh, bet you knew that,” Seokmin blabbers on, head spinning from how confrontational he sounded. “And I bet you know that you should just start over again.” Mingyu’s still too silent. Seokmin starts gesturing wildly with his hands, trying to salvage everything that he can. “I mean we were in bread class together! I know you know that – ”

There’s a very awkward pause of silence that bubbles between them. Mingyu shakes his hair out of his eyes, pointedly not meeting Seokmin’s. “I didn’t know that,” he admits, so quiet that if they weren’t the only ones in the kitchen at one in the morning, Seokmin wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all. It’s like it pains him to say it.

“Oh,” Seokmin says. So that’s it. Kim Mingyu hates being wrong. Seokmin starts thinking of what else to say to amend the situation. “Uh,” he says, brain still buzzing with possible versions of _I’m sorry._

“Now you do.” _Shit._

Mingyu laughs, and it’s that humorless laugh, like the one he gave Seokmin when he gave him back his Baked Alaska. He gathers up the dough and chucks it into the trash bin. The awkward silence continues, only broken as Mingyu turns on the faucet and starts washing the dough bits off his hands.

It takes probably thirty seconds for Mingyu to finish washing his hands and dry them on a paper towel. To Seokmin, it feels like thirty minutes.

His imagination is still in hyperdrive wondering what Mingyu’s going to say to him next because _he’s gotta say something, right?_ whether it be a sneer about _I guess you’re a culinary student after all_ or _if you hadn’t been late, I wouldn’t have this problem in the first place_ when the actual Kim Mingyu in front of him starts talking again.

“What?” Seokmin says, once Mingyu’s lips have stopped moving, his eyes looking at Seokmin expectantly. They’re dark and unreadable like usual but not accusing.

Mingyu doesn’t look annoyed like Seokmin expected he would, though. “You make rye bread all the time, don’t you?” he says. It still doesn’t sound much like a question, but it’s not as statement-like as usual. “Can I watch to see how you do it?”

Seokmin’s train of thought hits a wall. After thinking circles and loops around the enigma he realizes Kim Mingyu is to him – despite how friendly and open he seems – Seokmin doesn’t really know what to do now.

“Uh,” Seokmin says. Mingyu watches expectantly as Seokmin starts fidgeting. It reminds him of the way his sister’s small dog watches him when he’s snacking in the kitchen around its dinnertime. Seokmin’s just as bad as dealing with that dog as he is at trying to figure Kim Mingyu out. “Okay.”

Mingyu’s face lights up with a toothy smile, an unadulterated happiness twinkling in his eyes. Seokmin lets himself think the luxurious thought that maybe Kim Mingyu doesn’t hate him after all.

 

 

 

 

 

As it turns out, Mingyu is horrible at making bread.

“I don’t get how to get the yeast to work,” Mingyu says a few days later. They’re in the kitchen late at night again after Seokmin’s off from work, practicing how to construct a decorative loaf for the week’s showstopper challenge. The last few nights have been a lot of Seokmin working and Mingyu observing with his dark, curious eyes, occasionally asking questions after his eyebrows have been furrowed for a good ten minutes. “I barely passed bread class, you know.”

Seokmin’s selective memory somehow hadn’t caught that. He’d been so caught up assuming Mingyu was the “King of Baking” that all the other people in his grade, save for Minghao, said he was that he’d thought Mingyu could never have a bad bake. “It’s not hard,” Seokmin says. Mingyu shakes his head and laughs a real laugh this time.

“How’d you get so good?” he asks after taking his pencil to the diagram Seokmin made with their design for the loaf. He’d readily agreed to Seokmin’s shy proposal of making a lion’s head with a wreath of leaves curling around it and added to the idea by suggesting combining three different breads to create a more colorful display. “Practice?”

The paranoid part of Seokmin wonders if Mingyu’s asking only to steal his bread-making secrets and cast him aside once he’s gotten them. “I guess,” he shrugs. “My sister taught me a lot.”

Mingyu nods in understanding, focusing back on the bread diagram. “So if there’s different types of dough, won’t some cook faster than the others?”

“We can put foil over the ones that’ll brown faster,” Seokmin says, wondering how a thyme and rosemary loaf would taste alongside a cardamom and apple one. “Then they won’t get too dark.”

There’s raw dough in their first few attempts, but it finally goes right the night before recording. Mingyu looks at their creation with an almost child-like fascination and crushes Seokmin into a firm one-armed hug after he’s tasted every loaf.

“If we don’t get Star Team this week,” Mingyu says over the running water from where he’s washing the dishes. Seokmin hasn’t washed a bowl in days. “Then I’ll quit baking forever.”

He laughs at the horrified expression that crosses Seokmin’s face. Seokmin starts stammering something along the lines of _please don’t put that much faith in me_ and _you’re really hot when you smile,_ but Mingyu just beams at him and Seokmin’s thoughts turn to mush.

“You’re in a good mood,” Soonyoung remarks when Seokmin gets back, nearly causing Seokmin to hit his head on the bunk. Minghao’s sitting at Soonyoung’s desk, clipping his nails, pointedly ignoring their conversation. Why did Minghao come over so much, anyway?

Seokmin freezes. “What makes you think that?” he squeaks out, his voice betraying him. He nudges his head over at Minghao’s direction and Soonyoung smiles almost mischievously, eyes thinning into half moons of mirth.

“Good for you,” Minghao mumbles. Seokmin turns his head so fast that he feels something in his neck crick.

“What?”

Minghao looks disgruntled, like he really doesn’t want to repeat himself. “I said,” he frowns, looking at Seokmin like he does when Seokmin starts singing after Minghao’s told him to shut up. “Good for you.”

Seokmin throws his arms around Minghao. “You’re talking to me again!” he yells while Soonyoung cracks up at the stricken look on Minghao’s face. He keeps coddling Minghao on purpose, flailing limbs and all, until their neighbor to the right screams at them to shut up.

Seokmin starts thinking that things are looking up – he’s not dreading recording tomorrow, Minghao’s back to being his friend, Mingyu trusts him to actually bake this week – when the nerves that had been noticeably absent for the past two times Mingyu had taken care of everything begin kicking in.

 _Mingyu trusts him to actually bake this week._ Seokmin was definitely going to knick off a finger this time.

“Your hands are shaking,” Mingyu comments as they’re in the waiting room, taking the seat next to Seokmin. He’d been mingling with the other teams – eleven of them were left now after two eliminations – before coming back to Seokmin, who was desperately trying to calm himself down with some Boyz II Men.

Seokmin pretends that he’s not thinking about the thousands of ways today can go wrong with a laugh but it sounds more like a whimper when it leaves his lips. Mingyu looks at him, worry creasing his forehead, and reaches for one of Seokmin’s shaking hands with his steady ones.

Mingyu’s fingers feel warm on the back of his palm. Strong. Reassuring. “You’ll be fine,” Mingyu says. It sounds like he’s trying to promise Seokmin something. Seokmin feels each beat of his heart – hummingbird wing quick – and convinces himself that it’s only the stress and nothing to do with how Mingyu’s fingers are pressed insistently through his own. “We’ll be fine,” he affirms again and Seokmin can still feel the pressure of Mingyu squeezing his hand long after he’s let go.

Mingyu’s right – everything does turn out fine. There’s a point in the middle of the technical when Seokmin can’t find the buttermilk for the scones – _who even wants thirty-six identical scones, anyway?_ – and Mingyu’s fingers brush against his for a brief moment. Seokmin, who already feels like he’s having an out-of-body experience for the entire day due to how fuzzy his nerves feel from over-worrying, looks back at him, slightly dazed, and Mingyu just gives him a blinding smile of encouragement.

Aside from a small spat over who put the rosemary and thyme dough where, Seokmin doesn’t feel the sticky sensation of uselessness in his chest. He’s too busy to, and he doesn’t think about it until their lion loaf is out of the oven and the entire weekend is over. Mingyu holds up his hand for a doughy high-five and clasps his fingers around Seokmin’s once their palms meet for a few seconds. Seokmin’s face doesn’t heat up at all at that.

Kahi’s mouth is pressed into her usual harsh line when she approaches their station. Seokmin swallows so loud he swears that the entire room hears it. Mingyu’s fingers brush against his. Seokmin’s not sure if it’s on purpose, but when he turns to glance at Mingyu, he’s not looking at him.

“The bottom is a good color,” Kahi says, tapping the crust with a knife. Seokmin snaps his gaze back forward, feeling bad for getting distracted in the first place.

Jonghyun nods at them with an encouraging smile. “The design’s amazing. Got a little spread out in the oven, but it takes a lot of precision to time when and how to make sure that all the different doughs cook but don’t end up burnt,” he says. “And you did just that.”

Seokmin lets out the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding once Kahi’s done cutting through the bread and observing both sides. _Not raw._ He sees Mingyu’s nervous smile grow into a full one out of the corner of his eye. “Good bake,” Kahi comments before she and Jonghyun both tear off pieces of the bread and try each variety. “Flavors are amazing.”

“You’ve really got this one in the bag,” Jonghyun comments. “Good job Mingyu.” He turns to look at Seokmin. “Seokmin.”

“Oh my god,” Mingyu whispers after the two judges move on to Junhui and Wonwoo behind them, melting against Seokmin’s side, both his hands grasping one of Seokmin’s. “We did it! You did it!”

Between the judges’ comments and he and Mingyu actually working as a team for the first time in weeks, Seokmin thinks he’s dreaming. He lets Mingyu slap his right shoulder and clasp his hand there, creating a little niche for it to rest.

They end up getting Star Team of the week, and it’s all a blur of Mingyu’s face close to his and everyone else congratulating them, even Sungyeon and Jisoo, who’ve gotten eliminated. Seokmin barely notices that Mingyu’s still holding his hand tightly in his during their post-announcement interview until Mingyu starts talking to the camera animatedly.

“I’m not very good at making bread,” Mingyu admits before turning to look at Seokmin. Their eyes meet – Mingyu’s dark but bright ones staring into Seokmin’s. “I’m lucky that Seokmin’s so good at it. He did amazing this week.”

Mingyu’s still looking at him when it comes time for Seokmin’s comment. Seokmin uses all his effort to look away from Mingyu’s eyes and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “I thought I was gonna chop off a finger!” he squeaks out.

Mingyu’s laugh is deep and careless and closer to Seokmin’s ear than he expected. It takes a lot of energy that Seokmin doesn’t have to convince himself that he doesn’t like it.

 

 

 

 

 

The sun’s long set by the time Seokmin and Mingyu get off the bus and make the uphill trek back to their dorms. Seokmin, still in a state of awe that made everything around him feel groundless and unreal, had let Mingyu drag him to dinner with the others, and it’d been surprisingly nice albeit his own lack of social skills.

“You’ve gotta tell us your recipe for that rye bread of yours!” Kyulkyung insisted. Eunwoo rolled her eyes jokingly and tried to pull Kyulkyung away from where she was gesticulating very close to Seokmin’s face.

“Don’t mind her,” Eunwoo laughed, ignoring Kyulkyung’s slap to her shoulder. “She practically ate all your rolls.”

“Hey!” Kyulkyung yelped back. Eunwoo started cackling and Mingyu looked on, amused, when Seokmin glanced at him for help.

It turned out that some of the bakers had backgrounds that caught Seokmin off-guard. Kyulkyung, even with her impeccable Korean, was actually an international student from China – Seokmin only found out when he saw her start bickering with Junhui in their native tongue – and Eunwoo was the one who’d gotten her into baking in the first place once they’d became flatmates during their first year of university. Nayoung was almost done with her bachelor’s in architecture while Jeonghan was an engineer. According to Mingyu, they’d been dating for a year, but Seokmin found it hard to believe when they’d break into a small argument at least once during each challenge over how Jeonghan chucked random amounts of ingredients into the mixer while Nayoung wanted everything meticulously measured.

Junhui had studied at a culinary institute in Hong Kong before coming to Korea, Wonwoo had learned how to bake by watching YouTube videos, Sungyeon and Jisoo were both from the same church and raised money by holding bake sales, Yewon and Kyla were the youngest of the batch and both still studying for their entrance exams, and Kaeun, Eeyoung, Dongho, and Minhyun were all already in the workforce.

“I’m sad we’re not going to be here for dessert week,” Sungyeon sighed, her star-shaped earrings dangling as she shook her head slightly. “We were going to use Jisoo’s mom’s tiramisu recipe.”

Jisoo looked up from where he was grating his disposable chopsticks against each other, slightly embarrassed. “What if they didn’t assign us tiramisu, though?”

Mingyu, who was sitting next to Jisoo, pat him reassuringly on the shoulder. “You guys did great to come so far!” he smiled. “And if we do end up making tiramisu, please slip us your recipe,” he joked easily.

Seokmin had sat with Mingyu to his right, Junhui to his left, and Kyulkyung across from him. They held a good-natured conversation, both Kyulkyung and Junhui asked him a lot of questions about their school – what were exams and classes like, was it hard to get into, did his classmates really go on to get huge jobs at famous bakeries – and about his plans for the future.

“If you guys end up winning or getting to the final,” Kyulkyung started, pointing her chopsticks at Seokmin with a renewed purpose. “What are you going to do?”

“What would you do?” Junhui countered back before Seokmin could start tripping over his words. Kyulkyung tapped her chin thoughtfully with her chopsticks, leaving a small dot of chili sauce where they touched her skin.

“I’d want my own cooking show,” she smiled. “And I guess Eunwoo would appear as a guest every now and then.” Eunwoo, who had turned upon hearing her name, glanced at Kyulkyung suspiciously.

Junhui hummed. “I want to work at a bakery somewhere here,” he confessed. “And drag Wonwoo away from his boring editing job to come with me.”

Wonwoo, sitting on the other side of Junhui, shrugged at that. “Why don’t you just work at Mingyu’s bakery?” he suggested.

“Mingyu’s bakery?” Seokmin repeated, wondering if he heard wrong. Did they mean Mingyu’s parents’ bakery chain? Last time Seokmin heard, it was nearly impossible to get an apprenticeship let alone a job there, and they usually hired pastry chefs from other parts of the world instead. “You mean – ”

Mingyu cut him off abruptly. “Yeah,” he laughed, a pitch more nervous than usual. He glanced at Seokmin with shifting pupils, making sure Seokmin’s mouth had closed, before he went on. “I want to start my own bakery.”

Seokmin could feel himself gawking. “Nothing fancy!” Mingyu continued on, waving his hands in front of him. “Kind of like a mom-and-pop bakery. But really delicious.”

Mingyu, the heir to the most prestigious bakery chain in South Korea, didn’t want to inherit it. “Oh,” Seokmin said at that. Mingyu finessed their conversation into a different direction as Seokmin tried to wrap his mind around the idea.

He’s still trying to understand it as they’re walking up the hill their dorm building sits atop of, and Mingyu starts saying something. “Huh?” Seokmin breathes, trying to catch his breath from the fast pace Mingyu sets with his long legs.

How could Mingyu not want to become the next big pastry chef in the nation? Did his parents know about it? “I was saying,” Mingyu laughs, like he’s used to Seokmin asking him to repeat himself. “What made you want to bake in the first place?”

The question catches Seokmin off-guard. “My sister,” he says. He remembers coming back from primary school to the smell of vanilla in their apartment, his sister begging their parents to save up for a new stove that included an oven, teaching him how to make cookie dough when he still had trouble reaching the outlets over the kitchen counters. A smile spreads on his face at the memories of their flour fights, his mom looking horrified at the state of the kitchen when she and his dad – who’d just laugh – came home. “She taught me how.”

Mingyu nods. The darkness of the night renders his usually hard-to-read face the color of ink. “Is she also a pastry chef?”

“No,” Seokmin laughs. Last time she’d come back home from Busan during Chuseok, she’d nearly forgotten to include salt in the batter. “She’s an accountant.”

Mingyu takes a beat longer than he should’ve to reply. “Oh,” he says, awkward. It sounds like he wants to know more but stops himself from asking further.

“There wasn’t enough money to put us both through culinary school,” Seokmin shrugs.

The silence between them takes hold again, only the sounds of their breathing – Mingyu’s even while Seokmin was starting to huff from the uphill exertion – breaking through the dark. “What about you?” Seokmin tries. “Was it your parents?”

Mingyu’s teeth flash through the dimness of the street lamps they walk past. “Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Practically grew up baking.”

Seokmin suddenly remembers what Wonwoo said earlier that night. “Your own bakery, though,” he blurts out, too quick after Mingyu’s words to create a comfortable cadence of conversation. “That’s pretty unexpected.”

Seokmin wants to kick himself in the face, hard. Maybe crashing into the next pole would suffice. Mingyu lets out a nervous chuckle instead of lashing out at Seokmin. “Yeah,” he echoes. “I know.”

As Seokmin’s contemplating whether the shadow a good ten feet away from them is actually a pole, Mingyu goes on. “They don’t know,” he starts, turning to look at Seokmin. The slope accentuates the few inches Mingyu’s got over him, but in this moment, Mingyu looks small, like the sudden gentleness that his voice takes. “The other bakers. About my parents.” Seokmin feels his breath catch when the stark yellowness of the street lamp they walk past lights up Mingyu’s face – and no matter how many times Seokmin’s seen his face in the past month and over the last two years, this is the first time that he sees the vulnerable downward slope of Mingyu’s mouth, even though the moment is lost to the dark as soon as it comes.

“My whole life, I’ve had what my parents had,” he goes on to say, snapping Seokmin back to their conversation. “I just want something of my own for once, you know?”

Seokmin hums. They stop at the crosswalk right in front of their dorm. There aren’t any cars in sight, but they still wait and Seokmin wonders whether Mingyu wants to draw out their time together like Seokmin does at this moment.

“Sorry,” Mingyu says once the sign goes green. “I’m ranting to you,” and his lips are still pulled into that downward curve, like he’s afraid of what Seokmin will say.

“No!” Seokmin stammers out, louder than he intended. “I get what you mean.” That’s not quite it. “Well, kind of. Uh, I’m not you but I understand what you’re getting at – ”

Mingyu laughs and it sounds the way it does when Kahi and Jonghyun are walking away from their station after giving them compliments on their bakes. “Thanks Seokmin,” he says, and now that they’re in front of the building, Seokmin can see the large, toothy smile on Mingyu’s face clearly.

“Yeah,” Seokmin breaths out, not sure what he’s being thanked for. All he knows is that the elevator reaches the fourth floor too soon, and that when the doors close, narrowing his view of Mingyu waving good night to him, his heart is beating hummingbird wing quick.

 

 

 

 

 

Things start getting weird during batter week.

“So you’re friends now,” Jihoon comments when they’re closing up the cafe again, a few days before their next recording. Seokmin, who’d picked up the mop without any urging, drops it in surprise.

“What makes you think that?” he yelps. So much for being subtle. Jihoon rolls his eyes.

“You haven’t complained about him this entire week,” Jihoon says handing Seokmin a rag to wipe down the counters. He lounges in a nearby booth and watches Seokmin slowly turn back to mopping.

Sure, he and Mingyu were getting along a lot better now, but Seokmin wouldn’t really call them _friends._ Mingyu was disarmingly open to sharing his thoughts and feelings, but Seokmin couldn’t tell if that was just Mingyu’s personality or if Seokmin had passed some kind of standard to earn his trust.

Then Mingyu starts staring at him a lot.

Seokmin doesn’t know if it’s been this way the entire time, but he keeps catching Mingyu looking at him while they’re practicing in the kitchens. They’re working on perfecting mint chocolate churros on Tuesday when Seokmin feels the weight of someone’s eyes burning the hairs at the nape of his neck.

When he glances over, Mingyu’s staring at his thigh. Seokmin doesn’t notice there’s a drop of chocolate sitting where his basketball shorts rode up until he follows Mingyu’s gaze down.

“I’ll go get some mint!” Mingyu exclaims, a little too loud for the empty kitchens at one-thirty in the morning. Seokmin’s about to tell him that there’s already a nice pile of leaves sitting where Mingyu had left them ten minutes ago, but the other runs off before he can open his mouth.

There’s the day they’re making waffles – Seokmin’s licking the extra whipped cream off his thumb when he catches Mingyu watching him out of the corner of his eye. Mingyu bangs his knee against the oven door, blabbering some excuse about how he has to check on something on the fridge, and walks the long way around to get to it. And the day they do pancakes – “Uh, you’ve got something on your face,” Mingyu tells him, eyes averted once he found that Seokmin caught him in the act.

It gets to the point that Seokmin finds himself staring at Mingyu a lot in response, and they play a sort of hide and seek of stealing glances at each other.

There’s nothing wrong with staring at Mingyu – he’s easy on the eyes with his strong features and tall build. What’s wrong is that Seokmin ends up slicing his thumb in the middle of the technical that weekend when he feels Mingyu’s gaze on the side of his face, glancing up to meet Mingyu’s eyes that widen when they make eye contact, and then he misses the strawberry.

“Holy shit!” Mingyu says once Seokmin’s realized that the knife’s cut through his flesh. “Get the staff!” he screams. “Seokmin’s bleeding!”

It turns out to be not that bad of a cut, thankfully. After putting some pressure on it and wrapping it with a bandaid, Seokmin’s back in commission. Mingyu looks a mix of embarrassed at own his over-reaction and glad that Seokmin’s okay.

They end up doing well that week, though they don’t get Star Team, which goes to Junhui and Wonwoo for once. When Seokmin gets a question about the knife incident during their post-show interview, all he can think about is how Mingyu’s sharp eyes bore into him, like he could look through Seokmin and see exactly how much of Seokmin’s thoughts he occupied.

“I got distracted,” he says. It’s not a lie. He can feel Mingyu staring at him again and is suddenly hyperaware of how their thighs are almost touching from where they’re sitting on the bench. He shifts slightly to the left. “It won’t happen again. I think.”

Mingyu laughs at that. It sounds strained and warbled like he’s forced it out, and the smile Seokmin feels on his face feels more like a grimace of shame.

They’re in the middle of making mousse as a practice for dessert week – the showstopper challenge was announced to be twenty-four mini mousse and sponge cakes – when Mingyu stops laughing and stares at Seokmin in all seriousness. Before, Mingyu would always use his phone during the in betweens of waiting for things to set or bake, while Seokmin would sit patiently, thinking about how their bakes would turn out.

“I’m concentrating on baking,” Seokmin had said when Mingyu asked him if he was trying to take a nap the first time he’d noticed. “I have this superstition,” Seokmin confessed, trying to will his cheeks not to heat up at how dumb it probably sounded to Mingyu. “That if you concentrate on your bakes really, really hard, you’ll pour all your love into it and it’ll turn out great.”

Mingyu hadn’t made fun of him. Instead, he’d joined Seokmin in silent prayer for their bakes to turn out well, and they occasionally conversed when they’d have to wait particularly long.

Seokmin, who’d still been laughing at the funny story Mingyu told about how his roommate always held conversations with him while sleeptalking, feels the smile slip off his face in worry. Had he offended Mingyu in some way by laughing? Or, “Is there something on my face?” Seokmin asks, wiping his cheeks in panic.

Mingyu blinks, and then averts his eyes. There’s color rising to his cheeks and the flush is a good look on him. Seokmin lets that train of thought die before it can manifest itself further – what else would make Mingyu blush? – as Mingyu clears his throat. “Uh, no,” Mingyu says, looking at his nice sneakers scuffing the kitchen tile. “I was just.” Takes a breath. “Your smile – ”

The timer goes off on the counter just then. “I’ve got it!” Seokmin says, standing up a little too quickly and banging his shin against the drawer knob in the process.

Seokmin doesn’t get how they’ve gone from finally hitting their stride as partners to falling back to disjointed, though well-meaning, conversations and random staring contests until the next dinner.

Dessert week is literally, but not figuratively, a mess. Seokmin somehow ends up with mousse in his hair and Mingyu’s jeans underneath his apron are smeared with chocolate and jelly. All Seokmin really wants to do is get back to the dorm and take a shower, but Jeonghan, who somehow looks just as clean as he did when they started recording in the morning, insists that they all go out to dinner.

“It won’t hurt,” Mingyu grins. The way it splits his face handsomely, the setting sun casting a bright line on the bridge of his high nose, convinces Seokmin, who wasn’t convinced before.

Mingyu was completely, utterly wrong.

The only seats left at the table are separated. Mingyu heads over to sit next to Eunwoo, who’s waving him over, which leaves Seokmin to sit with Wonwoo, Minhyun, and Junhui, who he’s all traded phone numbers with over the past two weeks. It’s fine, honestly – of course Seokmin felt more comfortable sitting with Mingyu, who he talked to the most out of everyone here, but Wonwoo and Junhui were always having some sort of conversation that they’d drag him into, and Minhyun interjected with funny comments every now and then – so Seokmin doesn’t know why something cloudy swirls in his stomach, rising to the surface of all the food he pushes into his mouth.

“Hey,” Minhyun says while Seokmin’s busy stuffing his face with rice. “Do you think there’s something going on between Mingyu and Eunwoo?”

Junhui tilts his head. “Why would you say that?” he replies, sounding confused. Seokmin follows their glances over to the other side of the table where Mingyu and Eunwoo are sitting.

Mingyu’s lowered his shoulders so that Eunwoo can comfortably whisper into his ear. A kind smile that Seokmin’s never seen Mingyu give him before appears on his face while Eunwoo giggles and slaps his knee.

 _Oh._ Seokmin chokes on his rice. “Oh,” Junhui articulates. Wonwoo reaches over to pat Seokmin on the back. “It sure looks like it.”

Minhyun leans over the table to put his face closer to Seokmin’s. “Do you know any of the details?” he smiles, wiggling his eyebrows. Minhyun was a bit of a gossiper.

Seokmin thinks about it. Mingyu was a handsome guy, and of course it made sense that Eunwoo would be attracted to him and that Mingyu would be attracted to Eunwoo – she was loud but cheerful, made weird jokes that Mingyu always seemed to laugh at, and could make incredible meringue. He does remember Mingyu bringing her up to Seokmin several times, now that he’s focusing.

“It’s insane how good Eunwoo and Kyulkyung are at baking when they’ve never attended culinary school, don’t you think?” Mingyu had said after trying out their churros last week, when they were walking up that ungodly long uphill stretch to their dorms again. “Those fondant roses on each churro were crazy.”

Seokmin had nodded. Eunwoo was the one who made those roses, if he remembers correctly.

“We don’t really talk about that stuff,” Seokmin frowns. Minhyun shrugs in disappointment and goes back to picking at his vegetables.

Junhui nudges Seokmin’s elbow with his own. “Come on, Seok,” he says. “You gotta talk about stuff like that at least _sometime._ ”

“But we really don’t!” Seokmin insists loudly. Maybe they’re not close enough for Mingyu to want to discuss that kind of thing, and it wasn’t like Seokmin had time to think about having someone to wake up to (other than Soonyoung’s loud snores) in the morning in between everything he had going on and school starting again in a few weeks. When he looks back towards Mingyu, Eunwoo’s talking to Kyulkyung and Mingyu’s staring straight at him. The swirling sensation starts gurgling in his stomach again.

“Are you dating anyone right now?” Seokmin blurts out when they’re on the bus back to campus. Their conversation had lulled to a stop, making Seokmin feel uneasy.

Mingyu looks up from his phone. Shit. “I mean, this is just me being nosy,” he continues, trying to salvage the situation. Shit, shit, shit. “‘Cause we’re uh.” What does Hansol like to call Seungkwan? “Bros.”

“Bros,” Mingyu repeats. He looks somewhat amused and Seokmin just wants to dig himself a hole to bury himself into.

“Yeah,” Seokmin replies weakly, pressing himself closer to the window in an attempt to minimize the square area of his existence.

Mingyu presses his lips together before popping them open again to form an “o” with his mouth. “I don’t really have time with everything going on right now,” he answers honestly, face unguarded.

He’s still staring at Seokmin, waiting for him to go on when Seokmin feels his brain combust. “Oh,” he says, highly intelligible. “Uh, awesome.”

Seokmin’s never wanted to run up the hill back to his dorm and bury his face into his pillow so bad.

“And now I have heartburn,” he says to Soonyoung and Seungkwan, who’s here to solicit Seokmin to bake him more things again with a pot of kimchi jjigae this time. He just happens to get Seokmin’s complicated relationship with Mingyu as a bonus.

Soonyoung and Seungkwan look at each other before looking back at Seokmin. “Are you sure you didn’t ask him,” Seungkwan starts with Soonyoung’s encouragement. “Because _you_ wanna date him?”

Seokmin snorts at that before starting to laugh loudly. “Kim Mingyu?” he wheezes out between guffaws. Soonyoung looks at him with concern and Seungkwan is in the middle of an eyeroll. “Date Kim Mingyu,” he repeats after their neighbor to the right yells at them to shut up again.

And then this horrible, horrible thought crosses his mind – _dating Kim Mingyu wouldn’t be so bad._

Shit.

 

 

 

 

 

According to Soonyoung, Seokmin actually falls in love quite often.

“They’re like concentrated amounts where you’re even more of a mess than usual,” he’d told Seokmin when he’d asked how Soonyoung knew he had a crush on Jung Jaehyun last year. “And you’re super obvious about it.”

“I am not!” Seokmin insisted. He always made sure to peek over textbooks to get a glance at Jaehyun in the library. Not like his eyes could stare at the sun itself.

Soonyoung raised his both of his hands in surrender. “Well, it was Doyoung who asked me about it.”

But Seokmin always knew when he had a crush on someone. He’d feel his heart pound loudly in his chest whenever he caught a glimpse of them – or someone who looked like them, he’d once mistaken someone else for Chaeyeon back during freshman year and that was how he’d met Yuju – would think about them holding hands and walking by the Han River in the summertime while his culinary math homework sat forgotten before him, and would feel his _should I or shouldn’t I?_ mentality gradually turn towards _DO NOT_ when he thought about whether or not he should ask them out.

All of Seokmin’s crushes dissipated as quickly as they began because he was really good at coming to terms with his own reality.

It’s not like Seokmin thought he was ugly. He was alright – not as handsome as his mom always proclaimed when she pinched the bridge of his nose – but he wasn’t a Kim Mingyu or Jung Jaehyun. Tack on his other trustworthy traits of being horribly awkward around new people and lacking a brain-to-mouth filter and the canvas Seokmin painted of himself was left looking a bit like a lopsided cake. Very edible, but not as appealing as a four-tiered masterpiece some people had at their weddings in comparison.

Of course Seokmin still held onto the hope that there was someone out there in the world for him, but it waned once in a while when he’d remember how he was twenty-one now and his virgin lips had only made out with some very good cupcakes.

To say that things between him and Mingyu get weirder after they become certified bros™ is an understatement.

Mingyu starts touching him more. Mingyu’s a touchy person by nature – slinging arms around Junhui and Wonwoo, squeezing Seokmin’s hand whenever he gets nervous during recording, and slapping Seokmin’s knee whenever he says something that Mingyu finds particularly funny – and Seokmin doesn’t know whether he’s reading too much into it when he notices how Mingyu steers him out of his way safely by putting his hands on Seokmin’s hips, how Mingyu massages the back of Seokmin’s neck when Seokmin stretches out his back after a long time bent over miniature tarts, and how Mingyu tangles their ankles together as they’re waiting for their tarts to blind bake as they sit on stools across from each other.

 _You wanna date him,_ Seungkwan’s voice echoes in his mind. Seokmin pulls away from Mingyu’s touch like it’ll burn him. He laughs nervously when Mingyu looks at him, confused.

There’s still the staring, but now it feels like Mingyu’s the one always catching Seokmin in the act instead. It fuels the stilted silence between them as they wait for their pies to come out of the oven, and it’s almost like they’re back to a month ago, except Mingyu actually listens to Seokmin now.

They manage to win Star Team during pie and tarts week – Kahi thinks their meat watercrust pie is amazing and Jonghyun admires Mingyu’s handiwork on their fruit tarts – and Mingyu, despite going along with Seokmin’s lack of talking during the whole recording, crushes him into a hug saying, “I could kiss you right now.”

What the fuck.

Of course Mingyu doesn’t _really_ mean it – letting go of Seokmin after a bit and making a beeline towards Kyulkyung and Eunwoo, of course it’s Eunwoo – but Seokmin feels that swirling in his gut again and the heat rising to his face.

“Are you dating anyone?” Mingyu asks when they’re on the bus home. Seokmin, who’d been making a pointed effort to not start or contribute to holding a long conversation, accidentally makes eye contact with him in his shock.

“Me?” Seokmin snorts. Mingyu nods. “Does it look like I’d be the type?”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything, just waiting for Seokmin to continue on with an _I don’t know, you tell me_ look in his eyes. Or at least that’s what Seokmin thinks he sees.

“Well, no,” he says, answering his own question. He turns back to look out the window before he can gauge Mingyu’s reaction.

Their summer break is winding down, the cicada’s voices dimming as the weeks pass, and Seokmin wonders where the days went. It’d be killer if they made it all the way to the finals – the episodes wouldn’t start airing until a week or two after that last recording – because class started that Monday, and Seokmin didn’t know how he was going to balance work shifts, classes, and practices with Mingyu without burning out more than he already did.

The quiet between them as they walk up the hill to the dorms, as usual, is uncomfortably drawn out even for Seokmin, who initiated it in the first place. Mingyu’d taken the hint for Seokmin’s need for silence – though he probably didn’t know exactly why, or at least Seokmin hoped he didn’t – sometime during the bus ride back, and didn’t prod the way Soonyoung, Seungkwan, and Minghao would.

“I don’t want the next term to begin,” Seokmin starts. Mingyu doesn’t turn to look at him. It makes Seokmin wonder if he was even listening.

After a belated pause, only interjected by Seokmin’s loud breathing – he’d never get used to climbing this hill, no matter how many years he’s lived on campus – Mingyu hums. “Why not?” he asks.

“Work, school, outside practice, practice for the Bake-Off,” Seokmin trails off, listing each item by ticking a finger. “I still can’t believe that we’ve made it so far.”

“Yeah,” Mingyu echoes, but doesn’t add on. The hill stretches on, and they stop at an intersection.

Seokmin’s heart beats, loud and quick, threatening to burst in nervousness. He doesn’t know why he’s nervous – it’s just Mingyu – but then he thinks, _it’s Mingyu._ Mingyu with his sharp, dark eyes that light up every time he agrees with Seokmin, touchy Mingyu, Mingyu who liked Eunwoo –

“I wish I could be you,” Seokmin blurts out, thoughtlessly. Mingyu’s fast steps slow to a more reasonable pace before stopping all together.

“Why’d you say that?” he says, and though his voice is calm, Seokmin can almost hear the frown in it.

“Because,” Seokmin starts. He realizes he doesn’t know where to. No need for a part-time job, or worrying about whether or not he’d actually earn an apprenticeship, being able to put himself and his thoughts out there without the worry that they’d end up burning him in the end, laughing with his head thrown back, a hand tracing circles onto Seokmin’s knee – it seemed so easy to be Mingyu, who had everything Seokmin could ever want.

“Because,” he repeats. Some part of Seokmin wishes he could hate Mingyu for it, but here he stands across from him, thinking that it could be so easy to reach into the darkness between them for Mingyu’s hand and hold it all the way back to the dorms.

It’d be easy if Mingyu liked him. But he doesn’t, so Seokmin just lets out a breathy laugh and shrugs. “No reason,” he ends up settling for.

Mingyu stares, but doesn’t ask. The silence between them is thick and sticky against Seokmin’s fingertips that shake, hidden in the night. There’s still that swirling in his stomach, heavy like it’ll give him indigestion, and the insistent pounding of his heart, reminding Seokmin that it hasn’t broken into thousands of brittle-dust pieces yet.

 

 

 

 

 

Seokmin’s streak of decent luck goes to die when they step into the tent for botanical week.

First of all, decorating wasn’t Seokmin’s strong suit. Even though he’d practiced making floral embellishments out of fondant and piping on any even, flat surface in his and Soonyoung’s shared room, Seokmin always reverted back to his clumsy-handed ways once the pressure was on and they’d start trembling.

Second, he and Mingyu hadn’t found much time to practice over the past week. In between Mingyu going to visit his grandparents and Seokmin adjusting his work schedule to prepare for when classes would start up again, they'd only met up once to plan their bakes and otherwise resorted to messaging each other to revise their ideas. It’d been good for them, Seokmin thought – or at least, good for him – that they’d taken some time apart, but Seokmin didn’t feel prepared enough. No number of 90’s classics can abate the panic that starts climbing up Seokmin’s throat.

Third, Mingyu takes an earbud from Seokmin's ear when they're on the subway, unsolicited. The Titanic theme appears on shuffle and Seokmin wants to run off at the next stop when Mingyu starts miming the penny whistle solo during the bridge. They exchange about four sentences during the whole morning.

Fourth, Jung Jaehyun is standing right in the middle of the tent as they walk in.

"Our guest judge for today," Kahi announces. Kyulkyung and Eunwoo are whispering to each other and Seokmin feels his heart rise all the way up to his throat. Though his crush had faded, there was something about Jaehyun's dimpled smile and the lack of closure that made Seokmin's stomach do strange acrobatics when Jaehyun met his eyes.

"Hey, Seokmin," Jaehyun says, that winning smile still on his face. Realistically, it made sense – they'd been in the same Introduction to Gastronomy class freshman year, and Jaehyun had sat next to him, so he had to remember Seokmin's name – but it doesn't stop Seokmin from gawking back in surprise.

"H-hey," he stutters back. Jaehyun just pats him on the shoulder as he passes and the nostalgia of Seokmin's past crush hits him in the face. He can feel Mingyu’s stare from his other side.

The silence between them, already stifling like a wool sweater that didn't quite fit well after irreversibly shrinking in the wash, takes on a different tinge after that. "I think it needs to be sharper," Seokmin comments when he takes a taste of the grapefruit and mint custard Mingyu's stirring.

Mingyu stares at him for a beat too long for it to be an accident. He snaps his head back to look at the custard once he realizes Seokmin's reciprocating the stare. "Okay," he says, clearing his throat before gathering up the bowl and moving to the other end of their station. Seokmin thinks he hears him mutter something about fingers and it confuses him until he feels his arm drop from where he was licking the custard off the side of his thumb.

Seokmin doesn't ask Mingyu to pass him the eggs and Mingyu doesn't ask Seokmin for the extra whisk that's sitting where his elbow is. Seokmin wonders if he's done something so wrong that Mingyu won't even try to break the silence with a joke or word of encouragement before realizing that he wasn't in a place to expect things from Mingyu.

"Here," Mingyu says, gently wrenching the torch out of Seokmin's grasp. "I can do it."

Seokmin tightens his grip instinctively, flashbacks to those first two weeks of doing menial tasks in the forefront of his mind. "No!" he squeaks. "It's fine!"

Mingyu sighs. He sounds exasperated and Seokmin feels a pang of sadness knowing that it's because of him. "Your hands are shaking," he points out, as if it's not the norm for Seokmin to look like he's experiencing the effects of a mini-earthquake during the last five minutes of every bake.

Seokmin frowns, but lets Mingyu pry the torch away from him. He watches as Mingyu flames the top, eyebrows drawn in concentration. They don't high-five once time is called.

Mingyu doesn't smile as Kahi, Jonghyun, and Jaehyun approach their table, or when Jonghyun compliments their flavor combinations and Kahi proclaims it as her favorite bake in the competition so far, and he definitely doesn't smile when Jaehyun tells them good job with a blindingly bright grin towards Seokmin. "Are you sick today?" Seokmin whispers to him when they're on their way to the break room for an hour of rest before the technical.

The corner of Mingyu's mouth twitches as if he's trying to decide between smiling and not before settling back to its downward tilt. It wasn't like Mingyu to not brighten up at the judges' praise and to not exclaim _they said the crust was one of the best they'd had on the show!_ as they left the tent. It's not a good look on Mingyu – except who was Seokmin kidding, _everything_ was a good look on Mingyu, and a brooding Mingyu looked like he could grace the cover of some kind of high fashion magazine – and Seokmin scrapes the toes of his falling-apart sneakers against the carpet in unease.

"No," Mingyu finally says. He doesn't elaborate and Seokmin doesn't ask him to.

The technical doesn't go as well as Seokmin hoped it would, and they end up second-to-last. They'd almost started arguing over when to take the fougasse – a leaf-shaped bread that neither of them had even heard of before – out of the oven.

Mingyu's face had slowly inched its way closer to Seokmin's in the heat of their small spat. Seokmin felt Mingyu's breath trace his cheeks and quickly stammered out a concession in order to retreat. The image of Mingyu's lips up close, heavy breaths escaping between them, did not imprint itself into Seokmin's mental eye as he absentmindedly poured olive oil into a bowl.

Having to rely on the showstopper to pull them through to the next round is risky, especially considering how the semi-finals are next week, how strong the rest of the remaining teams are, and how Seokmin’s feels a static licking through his arms the entire way to the tent the next morning. Jaehyun gives him an encouraging grin when he walks past him, mouthing a soundless _good luck,_ and Seokmin just hears Mingyu huff next to him muttering _let's get this over with._

In all the two months they've spent together, Seokmin's never known Mingyu to want to rush through baking. He was actually the opposite – so meticulous that when they'd been tasked to make identical mini sponge cakes several weeks ago, Mingyu had stood in front of the scale for a good fifteen minutes, measuring the batter placed in each cup with a precision that Seokmin didn't have the patience for even on a good day. Seokmin frowns, watching as Mingyu ties his apron in a messy knot before pushing his hair back with an agitated hand, and wonders what's wrong.

"Are you okay?" he tries. Mingyu looks at him, mouth in a tight line, before turning away just as quickly.

"Yeah," he replies, too breezily to be the truth. Seokmin stops trying to untangle the back of his apron, annoyed.

"I wish you'd talk to me," comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. Mingyu's gaze snaps back to Seokmin, eyes dark and narrowed when he sees Seokmin's starting to open and close his mouth like a fish gasping for the sea on land.

He starts to say something, but stops before he can form any real words. He shrugs in the place of them, and Seokmin feels a sting more acidic than the pain he felt when Mingyu used to dismiss his opinions tear at his chest.

Saying that the showstopper goes terribly for them is a compliment.

Seokmin doesn't slice any of his fingers open, drop a curd or cake on its way to the cooling rack, or put the wrong flavoring into the right batter. Instead, he does everything he's supposed to do and Mingyu does everything he's supposed to do, but they work alone with a respectable distance between each other, in complete silence.

"It's missing something," Jaehyun says, looking at their four-tiered seasons-inspired cake with sympathy. Mingyu stiffens beside Seokmin.

Kahi turns her unforgiving gaze at them. "You're usually very good with your flavors," she frowns. "And you've missed it this time."

Jonghyun smiles sadly. "The appearance is very appealing, though."

Seokmin doesn't think the cake looks uneven or sloppy – it's actually beautiful, decked out with Mingyu's careful piping work and the fondant leaves and flowers Seokmin had painstakingly sculpted until his vision became blurry staring at their small forms. But when he nibbles on a slice of it, it's obvious what Kahi and Jaehyun are talking about.

It's in the too-subtle hint of mandarin in the buttercream, the over-sweetness of the second sponge tier, and the lack of sharpness in the lemon custard. It tastes like the silence that Mingyu and Seokmin bathe, no, submerge, themselves in – overwhelming and yet like nothing at all. It's like they've never truly worked out what they needed to after those first two weeks, and it's like all the time they've spent talking about their dreams and bakes, all the time they've waited in front of the oven, hoping that whatever they've put inside it will turn out just as they hoped it would never occurred – it's like Seokmin is just that rude classmate that Mingyu caught talking bad about him and Mingyu's the untouchable _King of Baking,_ fitting his feet into the oversized footsteps of his parents before him.

Mingyu isn't supposed to be his friend, Seokmin thinks. Sometimes, Mingyu doesn't understand Seokmin's jokes until he explains them to him – and then his face will slowly burst into an open-mouthed laughter, exposing his sharp canines – and Seokmin will chew on his lip when Mingyu runs over his baking ideas with his own excitement. Sometimes, Mingyu makes his heart soar in his ribcage like he's on his way down from the pinnacle of the highest roller coaster at Everland when he mentions how he likes Seokmin's plans, when his fingers brush Seokmin's as he passes him the milk. Sometimes, Seokmin remembers when Soonyoung asked _why do you care what Kim Mingyu thinks, anyway?_ and wonders why he's always talking about him, even when he doesn't know what Mingyu wanted to be when he was five, what Mingyu wants to be when he's forty-five, what Mingyu wants him to do as they sit across from each other on the subway home, miraculously through to the semi-finals, both of them connected to their headphones, speechless.

"See you," Mingyu still has the heart to say before Seokmin steps off the elevator to his room. It sounds distant, like they're not standing less than five feet apart, and that there's somehow a glass wall put up between them.

"Yeah," Seokmin echoes. And then it hits him.

Seokmin would like Mingyu to be his friend. The elevator doors close before he can say _see you_ back. He adds this to the long list of regrets that haunt him as he lays in bed that night and doesn't sleep a wink.

 

 

 

 

 

"You're quiet today," Jihoon remarks. He'd kicked the back of Seokmin's knees, causing them to buckle. Usually Seokmin would yelp and try to exact revenge – try being the key word, because no matter how much shorter Jihoon was than him, one glare would cause Seokmin to turn the other way – but today he just blinks after regaining his balance and goes back to writing someone's order down on the coffee cup in his hands.

He yawns once he's passed it onto Chan, who's balancing a full cup of creamer in one hand and an uncapped blended drink in the other. "Tired," Seokmin shrugs, trying not to sound as deflated as he feels. He hadn't slept well the past few days, thinking about why Mingyu had seemed so annoyed by him, and even though they were only supposed to meet up tonight to practice making cream puffs for their next challenge, Seokmin still hadn't reached a conclusion, let alone figured out what he should say to possibly make things better.

Afternoons are one of the busier times of the day due to the cafe's proximity to a university and a decent amount of office buildings, and Seokmin feels himself being dried out to the bone. "Capitalism!" he'd always complain to Soonyoung the days they'd have so many customers that Seokmin couldn't even take a bathroom break until he came back to the dorms.

Soonyoung would snort at that. "Aren't culinary students prime examples of it?" he'd say. Seokmin never agreed to it aloud, but Soonyoung had a point.

It's a little past dinnertime when Seokmin finds himself making the trek up the hill back to his room. "Go home," Jihoon had told him when he found Seokmin snoring on the couch in the break room, five minutes after his break should've ended. Seokmin, still half-asleep, started launching into his speech about how he was a poor student who needed to support himself to which Jihoon covered his ears to.

"I'll log you out at closing," he grumbled. "Now go home."

Any other day, Seokmin would've risked getting a bruise in his side by kissing Jihoon. Today, Seokmin vows to do it some other time when Jihoon's not expecting it and barely manages to avoid sleeping through his stop on the bus.

The late summer sun still scalding in the sky, and combined with the smell of coffee grinds that he swears he can never wash out of his clothes, Seokmin feels gross. He thinks about whining to Soonyoung, who's sitting on the toilet while laughing at some video on his phone, but eventually decides against it. Complaining took up too much energy – energy Seokmin could use to drag himself to his bed – and he'd have to get up in another three hours to meet Mingyu in the kitchens.

The sun’s long sunk behind the stout buildings of north campus when Seokmin steps outside again. He’s still bleary-eyed – instead of getting a full three hours of napping, Seokmin had gotten thirty minutes, too pumped up from listening to an old U2 album to fall asleep – and tries his best to not walk into the perpetually muddy patch of grass that unassuming freshmen usually fell into as they cut the corner of the field to the culinary building. The mucky heat lingers in the air, clinging to Seokmin’s shirt, and it’s not until he pulls open the door, the air conditioning tumbling onto his face, that Seokmin realizes how his shorts are sticking to his inner thighs.

He smells Mingyu’s baking down the hallway before actually seeing him. His back is facing Seokmin – strong shoulders moving as he folds egg whites into the dry ingredients – and as if Seokmin wasn’t already conscious of the saturated heat of summer in the heart of Seoul, Mingyu’s wearing one of those damn tanks again.

“Hey,” he says, putting his backpack next to Mingyu’s on the floor. Mingyu doesn’t look up from where he’s still stirring what looks like macaron batter, or flinch like Seokmin would. Instead, he remains stubbornly serious in his task, and Seokmin feels something between annoyance and guilt split in his chest.

He does his best to lean over the counter to look at Mingyu, whose face sets deeper in furrowed concentration like he’s trying to block Seokmin out, and forces an amicable grin on his face. Inside, his stomach knots itself and suggests he throw up his dinner. “Are those macarons?” Seokmin asks, voice small and shaking.

Mingyu finally acknowledges his presence with a fleeting glance. “Yeah, they’re macarons,” he replies, jaw stiffening. His words grate harsh against Seokmin’s ears – it’s like how he used to talk to Seokmin back when they didn’t try to work together, like it wasn’t worth using his breath to explain things to Seokmin – and Seokmin’s tired, tired and frustrated that they’d been falling out of whatever easy companionship they’d had, tired and frustrated and sad that no matter how many words he and Kim Mingyu exchange, there’s still something missing and it’s his fault, has to be his fault –

“Look,” Seokmin snaps back. Mingyu doesn’t and it just makes Seokmin angrier. That’s what he is – angry. “I know I’m nothing compared to you, but can’t we be friendly? At least until this competition is over or we get eliminated? Whatever comes first.”

Mingyu puts down the spatula with a huff. “What are you even talking about?” he retorts, and it’s not so much a question as an insult – that’s right, Kim Mingyu didn’t ask questions, he just –

“Yeah, I’m not the first in our class,” Seokmin says. His face feels hot and numb and there’s probably frustrated tears pricking his eyes somewhere in between there, but this feeling's been festering inside of him for so long. “I can’t pipe things for shit and I’m not a baking prodigy like you. I had to study my ass off in culinary math just so I wouldn’t fail and I haven’t had time to buy groceries in weeks and have been living off scrambled eggs for months!” His voice cracks and Mingyu turns to look at him with that, and of course he would, always catching Seokmin at his worst. “I know you’ve never really liked me because I talked bad about you before, but I never meant what I said back then! And I know that I’m not good at talking or anything but I’ve never hated you or anything, and we don’t have to be friends, I just – ”

Mingyu squints as Seokmin trails off, deflating now that everything that’s been building up for weeks escapes his traitorous mouth. “Seokmin,” he says, deadly serious. Seokmin swallows the lump in his throat and remembers that time he thought Mingyu looked like a carnivore hunting prey, and thinks it’s never been such an accurate likening until now. “Shut. Up.”

Seokmin feels like he’s been slapped in the face. So Mingyu doesn't care. Mingyu never cared, so that means in the logical scheme of things Seokmin shouldn’t have either. The biggest fucking problem is that he did and still does, and the realization’s even more painful than the day Seokmin left home for the dorms his freshman year, keeping his gaze down into his lunch in the midst of his classmates getting to know each other, alone.

“Okay,” Seokmin exhales. His breath’s carved by an earthquake. “Yeah." He shoves his hands into his pockets and wonders if they can snake all the way down and create a burrow in the ground, somewhere where he could finally get some sleep, sonewhere where he could forget. "What was I expecting?” he laughs, soft and uncomfortable, stretching out until holes appear in the fabric of his favorite sleep shirt – too thin from overwashing to go on. It sounds like he’s seconds away from crying to his own ears. “I – ”

“Fucking hell, Seokmin,” Mingyu sighs in the place of the words Seokmin didn’t know were coming out of his mouth, and then he’s surging forward, almond flour clouding where his hands make contact with Seokmin’s shoulders, and all Seokmin can see is that same blur of his handsome jaw and tanned, glowing skin. And then his cheek and then Mingyu’s lips nearly miss his as he pushes closer and closer and closer –

Seokmin hears the surprised sound he makes when Mingyu’s mouth hits his. The sound of their teeth almost clacking together, the sound of Mingyu sighing against his lips and. Mingyu’s kissing him. _Kim Mingyu’s kissing him._

Seokmin backpedals so fast that he hits his head against the overhead cupboard and combined with the fatigue and indigestion bubbling in his stomach, it fucking feels like death.

“Ohmygod,” Mingyu breathes, lips slightly swollen from where he pressed them against Seokmin’s – _he pressed those lips against Seokmin’s?_ His hands overlap Seokmin’s from where he’s clutching the back of his head. “Are you alright, Seokmin? I’m so sorry – ”

“Is this a joke?” Seokmin yells. Mingyu stares at him, dumbfounded, and Seokmin feels tears leak out of his eyes. “If you hate me, just tell me!”

A look of unmistakable realization flickers across Mingyu’s face, along with an apologetic grimace and disbelief. “Wait,” Mingyu starts. He still feels too close even though he’s taken several steps back since Seokmin smacked his head against the cupboard. “I thought you knew that I had a huge-ass crush on you.”

 _What._ Seokmin must’ve said it aloud because Mingyu stammers on. “At first I was like, yeah who’s this guy trash-talking me to his friends,” and the words tumble out of his mouth in a rush, like he’s afraid Seokmin will cut him off. “But then you were in my class, and you.” Mingyu pauses, blushing. “Your smile was super cute.”

“And your Baked Alaska was amazing,” he continues. His hands go between gesturing wildly to the speed of his words and wiping the palms on his aprons. “Along with everything else you made. And your thighs.”

Seokmin’s heart hammers against his ribcage. “My thighs,” he repeats.

Mingyu covers his face and lets out something in between a groan and what sounds like _I’m such an idiot._ “And you’re so busy, but never cranky or anything. You’re patient with me even when I run my mouth off, and you never yell at me about my touchiness and I don’t know!” He looks down at his shoes – indoor slippers, like he’d forgotten to change them before he left the dorm – before speaking again, this time towards the ground.

“I thought you knew,” Mingyu repeats, so soft that Seokmin barely hears him. “And that you were trying not to get my hopes up.”

The heart’s a fragile thing, and no matter how often Seokmin swears his will beat its way out of his body, it’s all the more apparent when Mingyu finally looks up to meet his eyes again. There’s nothing hiding in the way Mingyu stares him down, dark eyes so honest and affectionate that Seokmin doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed, how he’d interpreted Mingyu going along with his silence as a break in their friendship, how he’d thought Mingyu had hated him all this time.

The quiver in the left corner of Mingyu’s lips reminds Seokmin that Mingyu has everything he could ever want – good grades, amazing talent in baking, prestigious apprenticeships practically guaranteed to him and a stable job at his parents’ bakery afterwards. But despite all that, despite the future that Seokmin swears his sleepless nights are worth, Kim Mingyu who has everything Seokmin wants stands opposite from him, waiting with his fragile heart in his hands, and just wants Seokmin.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the way the story could’ve ended:

Their run on the _Bake Off_ comes to an end during patesserie week, when they’re regrettably eliminated due to what Kahi suggest is a “lack of cohesion” as a team. Seokmin frowns the entire way home, wondering what this means for his future, while Mingyu just broods – handsomely, unfortunately for Seokmin – as he gazes out the window.

“Well,” Seokmin says before they part ways for good. No more late nights in the kitchens with Mingyu, sitting in silence in front of the oven, hoping the best for their bakes. The occasional staring at Mingyu’s arms when he wears sleeveless shirts around Seokmin. Classes start next week and it almost feels like an end of an era to Seokmin. “Good job.”

Mingyu glances at him and then trains his gaze back to the sidewalk. “Yeah,” he echoes. “We did well.”

They walk their opposite ways as the sunset paints everything salmon and the color of grape jam. Those are the last words they ever exchange.

Here’s the way the story actually ends:

“Soonyoung says I’m loud,” Seokmin blurts out. He doesn’t know what that has to do with anything. Mingyu looks up from the toes of his shoes. Seokmin forces himself not to turn away, and a blush warms his cheeks. “And annoying.”

Freeze frame. There's a moment where they just look at each other and wait for what happens next. Seokmin's heart keeps beating, the only reminder that time hasn't actually stopped.

And then the largest smile splits Mingyu’s face. His eyes crinkle and there’s flour in his hair from where he pushed his bangs back and it suddenly strikes him that Mingyu, in this moment, is the most beautiful thing Seokmin’s ever seen.

“I don’t care what Soonyoung says,” Mingyu says, and his pointy-toothed grin reminds Seokmin of a cat who’s gotten the cream. “As long as he’s not your boyfriend.”

A laugh trickles up Seokmin's throat at that. It tastes like the satisfying crunch of a churro dipped in dark chocolate, the tartness of lemon custard through a cloud of sweet meringue, the soft of perfectly baked bread. But most of all, it tastes like the silence that settles over them in the aftermath, full of all the words that haven’t been – and are still yet to be – said between them.


End file.
